(the) Cook's (Son): v. Cook.

Cook is an occupational surname from the Old English word ‘coc’. Originally a cook might have been anything from a cook as we know it to a cooked-meat seller or even the keeper of an eating-house.

There are many variations on this surname from the obvious Cookson (which gives us Cuckson and Cuxon) to Cookes, Coke, and the more popular Cooke. Many commentators consider the final ‘e’ in Cooke as snobbish and affected. However, this is the spelling which is found in the fourteenth century from Piers Plowman, which refers to ‘Brewester, Batess, Bochers and Cookes’.

After the Norman Conquest a French variation appeared. This is Lequeux, which despite its exotic appearance means simply ‘cook’. It comes from the Old French word ‘queu’, meaning a ‘cook’, a ‘seller of cooked meats’, or an ‘eating- house keeper’. (The strikingly similar English word ‘queue’ does not, however, come from this source. It comes from the Old French word for a tail-le queue-which may have been the origin of Kew Gardens. Alternatively, the name Kew sometimes derives from a place name, a (now vanished) town near Boulogne.) Naturally, this good old English name for a vital activity abounds in ancient records. The earliest mention of the name comes over a century before the Domesday Book, in an Anglo-Saxon will dating from approximately 950, where one Aelfsige Se Coc is mentioned.

The explorations of Captain James Cook have left the name Cook all over the Pacific Ocean. The two most notable geographical features named after this famous navigator are the Cook Islands in the South Pacific and Cook Strait, New Zealand. Many other places are named after members of his crew, or even the days on which they were discovered (Christmas Island, for instance).

To be given a ‘Cook’s Tour’ of somewhere is to be shown round it, usually by a guide, and comes from the first great travel firm, Thomas Cook & Co, started in 1841.

The hat we today call a ‘bowler’ was introduced by one William Coke, a Norfolk huntsman, in 1850. Mr Coke asked his hatter, Mr Beaulieu of Nelson Square, London, to design him headgear more suitable than the then fashionable tall riding hat. The new hat became known as a bowler after the anglicisation of the designer’s name, though at the beginning it was also often referred to as a ‘Coke’.

The United Kingdom has 10 Cook-related towns-these range from Cookbury to Cookstown. Predictably the Pacific Ocean and Australia are full of Cooks including Cook Island, Mount Cooke, the Cook District of Canberra and a major reef in New Caledonia.

With about 102,000 namesakes Cook is the 53rd most popular surname in England and Wales. Were those with an ‘e’ at the end of the name added, the number and ranking would increase markedly. This variation is not common enough to be counted separately and neither version’s count is available for Scotland for the same reason. Cook(e) is notably popular in and around Bristol where an estimated one in about 425 families bears the name. In descending numerical order other strongholds of one spelling or the other are Teesside, Birmingham and Cardiff. Around the world Cooks and Cookes are most common in Canberra (one in 561 families), Auckland (one in 639) and Wellington (one in 660). In the United States there are an estimated 313,000 Cooks and 38,000 Cookes, in combination making this the country’s 43rd most popular surname.