This surname is derived from a nickname. 'the coe,' i.e. the jackdaw; Anglo-Saxon ceo, comix. 'Coo, byrde or schowhe; Koo, byrde or schowghe; moncdula, nodula' (Prompt. Parv). 'Koo, a byrde' (Palsg). Mr. Way quotes in a note:

— 'the churlysshe chowgh.

The route, and the kowgh: —

At this placebo.

We may not well forego

The countrynge of the coe.': Skelton's Philip Sparrow.

Hence no doubt 'Coe, an odd old fellow. Norf.'(Halliwell); an old jackdaw, as we might say.

Beatrix le Coe, Norfolk, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

William le Koo, Cambridgeshire, ibid.

Ricardus Koo, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

It is interesting to note that the Promptorium Parvulorum references, the quotation from Halliwell, and one of my Hundred Roll instances, are all from Norfolk. Again we find:

William Coe, of Ashill, Norfolk, 1526: ibid.

Thus Coo and Coe were identical. Coe is still a familiar Norfolk surname.

Mac Cumhaighe Co. Armagh. Quite distinct from MacCoy. SIF 40

Mac Cumhaighe Co. Armagh. Quite distinct from MacCoy. SIF 40

1. In Norfolk, an eccentric old man. 2. A Scottish rivulet giving name to Glencoe. There is a Beatrix le Coe in H.R.

The primitive word Co is an elevation, exalted. Koh, in the Coptic, is a rock; koh, Persic, a hill; Coey, Gaelic, a hero, literally, a dog. Lower says that Coe is a Norfolk provincialism to designate "an odd old fellow."

Gaelic, Cu—maighe, figuratively, the hero or swift warrior; literally, the "dog of the plain."

(Gaelic.) A hero; literally, the dog of the plain, from cu, a dog, and magh, a plain. The names of various animals were given anciently to heroes, to denote power, swiftness, or courage.

Coe is a characteristic East Anglian name, and reference will be found to it under "Norfolk," "Suffolk," and "Essex." It may, however, interest the Cambridgeshire Coes to learn that in 1766, the wife of Henry Coe, shoemaker, of St. Sepulchre's, Cambridge, was safely delivered of two sons and two daughters; the father, midwife, nurses, and sixteen gossips, went to the church in procession to attend the baptism, and were accompanied by "an incredible number of people": three of the children died within twenty months, but the fourth was alive in 1808 (Cooper).

Coe is an ancient Norfolk name. There was a Beatrix le Coe in the county in the reign of Edward I. (H. R.). A family of Coe owned property in Ashill and Saham at the beginning of the 16th century (Bl.). The name is also now represented in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Essex.

Coe, an ancient name also now found in the surrounding counties of Cambridge, Essex, and Norfolk, has long been found in this county. James Coe of Orford, Suffolk, contributed £25 towards the defence of the country at the time of the expected invasion of the Spanish Armada in 1588 (Sp.). Coe was a common name in Shere, Surrey, in the middle of last century (Manning's "Surrey").