The COOKE Family Name

Cook's From Ireland.....

Origin

There are three distinct origins for the name Cooke in Ireland.

In Leinster, it is a mainly occupational English name in many cases, long established there and there are nine associated place names there: (Cookestown, Cooksland etc.).

In Ulster, it is usually of Scottish origin - MacCook or MacCuagh, a branch of the clan MacDonald of Kintyre. Cookstown, Co Tyrone was founded by Alan Cook in 1609.

In Connaught, Cooke is the modern anglicized form of Mac Dhabhoc (also called Mac Uag) the name of a branch of the Burkes and is anglicized as MacCooge in some places. The MacCoogs of south Galway were first named MacHugo from Hogo Burke.

Derivation

Cook - One of the oldest of occupational names from the Old English coc, cuc ("a cook") a derivative of: cueccan ("to Cook").

The Latin word for cook is cocus; in French a cook is le queux. The French surname Lequex is equivalent to the English Cook.

The English patronymic form of Cook is Cookson; the Scottish is MacCook. The MacCooks of the Scottish Highlands were allied with the clan MacDonald of Kintyre.

Early spelling of Cook is Coke. Cook was a household servant rather than a craftsman. Every establisment of any size from a royal castle to the smallest manor house or inn, even a camp of outlaws in the forest, had a cook. There were many cooks in Duke William's army when he sailed from Normandy. We see cooks in the Bayeux tapestry busily roasting small birds over spits at very neat looking camp kitchens. His own special cooks were much favoured and given English manors to reward them for the tasty dishes he had enjoyed. The country produced an abundance of edible wild life, and the cooks used every possible herb and spice for sauces and flavoring. Cooks had several lads running at his command, but very few of them gained surnames from this kind of task.

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Sherry in Georgia
rbsn89a@prodigy.com

Mrs. Sherry Crabtree Osburn
P.O. Box 27
Brooks, GA 30205-0027

From an unpublished genealogy of. Robert J. Underwood, "No Li Irritare Leones"

The Underwood Family of Kidderminster England and Suffield, Conn. and related Families: 1993: Excerpts from Bob's genealogy: (It is a nice size gen. abt 200 pages-index and seems well researched:) Bob continues to updates his work:

Cook-Cooke is one of the five most common names in England. The name began to appear in Ireland along the port cities. The name is more common in Northern Ireland. It is an English name; it is not a "true" Irish name.

 

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Last updated June 1999 by Web Genealogist Chris Stefanovich.