COCK
Cock is a surname of strict Anglo‑Saxon provenance. Its earliest reference appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 under the name Aluuinus Coc, thereby attesting to a presence in Cambridgeshire during the reign of William the Conqueror.
The etymological root of Cock is the Old English word cocc, meaning a rooster. In medieval England this word was frequently applied as a nickname to a youth who exhibited rooster‑like strutting or an audacious, confidence‑laden attitude. It could also denote a natural leader, an early riser, or an individual of robust vitality.
Additional avenues for the surname are topographical and occupational. The same Old English cocc was employed to describe a haycock, heap or hillock, so the name may have originally signified a dweller near such a hill. Occupationally, it may have referred to a man who kept or fought cocks, or to one who steered a cock‑boat, a small rowboat used to ferry passengers from a ship to shore.
In the Middle Ages, personal names such as Cocc or Cocca were recorded in place‑names although they rarely survived as independent surnames. These names sometimes evolved from the pet form of Roger, leading to the variant Cocke and other derivatives such as Cox and Cocks.
Subsequent documentary evidence illustrates how the surname spread across England. In the Staffordshire Forest Pleas of 1271 the name is borne by a man known as William le Cock, and in the London Subsidy Rolls of 1319 a noteworthy Hugh ate Cocke is listed. In 1556 the marriage record from St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster, documents Alicea Cox marrying Burkrave Westdrop, demonstrating the name’s continued use in the capital.
Variations of the surname are numerous. Apart from the English spellings Cock, Cocke, Cocks, Coak, and Coake, other recorded forms in adjacent regions include Cox and, across the English Channel, the German spellings Koch and the French de Cook. The name is especially common in the West Midlands, with a number of families still bearing the surname today.
Modern perception of the surname has been affected by the contemporary English word “cock”, which can carry offensive implications. As a result, the variant spelled Cock has fallen out of favour relatively quickly when compared with its cousins Cook and Cox, and it is consequently less common in modern registries. Nevertheless, the surname remains recorded in civil registers and census returns worldwide, reflecting patterns of emigration to Ireland, the Americas, Australia and other parts of Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
In sum, the surname Cock exemplifies the manner in which medieval English naming conventions drew upon personal attributes, landscape features and occupations to create family identifiers that have survived, sometimes in altered form, into the present day.
Typical given names associated with the Cock surname
Male
- Andrew
- Anthony
- Darren
- David
- Graham
- James
- John
- Matthew
- Michael
- Peter
- Simon
- Stephen
- Thomas
- Tim
Female
- Helen
- Kathleen
- Lisa
- Margaret
- Mary
- Michelle
- Nicola
- Phyllis
- Rosemary
- Sarah
- Susan
- Yvonne
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Cock in...
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There are approximately 926 people named Cock in the UK. That makes it roughly the 7,814th most common surname in Britain. Around 14 in a million people in Britain are named Cock.
Famous people named Cock
- The Colditz Cock - Engineer (1916 to 2007)
- Geoffrey Hornblower Cock - Flying ace (1896 to 1980)
- Herbert Cock - Football player (1900 to 1)
- James Cock - Australian politician (1833 to 1901)
- The Colditz Cock - RAF Officer (1912 to 2000)
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.