From the

Ancestors of Charles Clement Heacock,

1851-1914

Compiled by his son Roger Lee Heacock in 1945

With an account of the descendants of Joel and Huldah Gaskill Heacock

Published at the Baldwin Park (Calif.) Bulletin, 1950.

 

 

THE HEACOCK FAMILY

Pages 11 & 12

The earliest records of the Heacock family are found in Staffordshire, England. These records beginning with a burial in 1575 go back just about as far as the records of any middle class family can go, as the registers of English churches began no earlier than 1538, when Cromwell issued an order requiring the recording of baptisms, marriages and burials.

The name of Heacock, in its present form, is not much older. There were no middle class family names in Medieval Times. While the first traces of them in England are observed at the time of William the Conqueror (1066), they had not become general until the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Names did not originate suddenly, but evolved as did the words of ordinary language, and the fixed spelling is relatively new. The first Heacock to touch the shores of America spelled his name Heycock, Heacock and Haycock, and a few generations earlier wider variations are noted, the recorders having apparently entered the name in the registers just as it happened to sound to them, with no regard for uniformity.

Several accounts of the origin of the name have been given by various writers on the subject. There is no doubt as to the fact that Heacock is of Saxon (i.e. Germanic) origin, and not Latin. Thus the COCK does not come from Latin coquus, French coq, and has no connection with the English designation for a male chicken.

Mark Antony Lower, M.A., in his "English Surnames" discusses suggestions which have been made regarding the origin of the syllable "cock", so frequent in surnames. While Peacock, Woodcock and others come from animals and may be derived from Latin "coquus", he rejects suggestions that the syllable as such is derived from "coquus" or from "cook" as others have suggested. "Cock" is instead a diminuative ending from the old Frisian (Saxon), and has the same significance as the French "ette", which we use in kitchenette. Except for proper names, the syllable has disappeared from the English language, but he cites a few examples of the survival of the old meaning:

"In Lincolnshire a litttle fussy person is called a Cockmarshall, also elsewhere: Cock-o-my-thumb . . . nor must we forget the use of this mysterious syllable in the ancient nursery rhyme of--

                          Ride a cock-horse 
                          To Bambury Cross.-- 
where little horse is evidently intended. Cockney originallly meant a spoiled or effeminate boy."

The Rev. Henry Barber, M.D., F.S.A., wrote a book in 1903 called "British Family Names", which contains the folllowing discussion of the syllable "cock":

"The diminutives, Frisian, ken, ke, ock, and cock . . . There has been much controversy over the termination 'cock'. It appears to be derived from the Frisian gok or kok, a foolish, silly, awkward person, hence the Scoth "gow." The Frisian Jankok (Johncock) is equivalent to the German "Hans Wurst". At first applied to children as a check to thoughtlessness. it would become gradually used as a diminutive. Cock ond ock are akin to ke. In some cases cock is a corruption of cot found in local names."

The origin of the first syllable of the name is less clearly explained. Americana (American Historical Magazine), Volume XIX, 1925, page 479, gives the following explanation of the origin of "Heacock" which, it will be noted, accepts the previously given explanations of the final syllable:

"The name comes from an old German word, ikiko, contemporary in the tenth century, which is a diminutive form of the old Frisian "ig", a point, sharp edge, i.e., a little sword. This form developed through the English as Heacock and Hickock. The name itself is subject to a great variety of forms. These range from Hitchock, Hickock, down to Hickox, Hicks, and Heacock. In this line the patronymic is spelled Hickcox."

The writer of this article does not give his sources, and his connecting of Heacock with Hicks, Hickox, etc. does not agree with the conclusions of Lower and Barber. A large dictionary of the German used in the tenth century, in the Library of Congress, does not contain "ikiko" or anything similar. There is however, a word in modern German which may be derived from the old "ig", and which preserves the implication of "a point". It is "Igel" (porcupine).

Barber has the following explanations under his alphabetical list of name meanings in the book already cited:

Heacock: see Haycock. Haycock: A hill in Cumberland, or Frisian: Heike; Flemish: Haeck; Anglo-Saxon: Hecca; Dutch: Heek, Haeij Kak; personal name diminuative of Frisian Hayo, see Heyhoe.

Heyhoe: Anglo-Saxon: Heio; Frisian: Hayo, Heie, Hei; Swedish: Ey: Dutch: Heij; German: Hey, Heyer; personal name (high).

These are evidently names or syllables from which Heacock may have evolved or with which the name may be related.

Lower in his "English Surnames" has another explanation for Haycock. He says it is probably a name given to a foundling exposed in a hay field. In this case the "cock" would not refer to a mound of hay, but would have the pure diminutive significance, "a litttle one".

According to Robertson "British Heraldry" the Heacock coat of arms was granted in 1746. It is described as "Erminois, an elephant azure on a chief of the second a sun between two beehives or. Crest: A hind sejant erminois collared gules, reposing his dexter on a beehive or". The arms and crest, printed in color, may be found in the volume of Americana referred to above. They are also described in Fairbairns "Crests".