Heckner - Meno

This great Scandinavian name has made its mark on the Eastern counties of England, and derives from the Old Norse 'haki' or Old Danish 'hake', meaning a hook or crook, and may have been originally used as a nickname for a person with an interesting profile, or alternatively, an occupational name for a pedlar or street trader, deriving from the Middle Low German 'hoken', which means to carry things about (on one's back). The English word 'hawker' comes from a 16th Century adaptation of this term. The following examples illustrate the name development following 1066 (see below): Leuiua Filia Hacke (1218, Assize Rolls, London), Gilbert Hake (1257, Feet of Fines, Suffolk) and Robert Hakke (1375, Norfolk). John Hake was christened on March 19th 1757 at St. Christopher le Stocks, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Turkil Hako, which was dated 1066, in the Domesday Book of Norfolk, during the reign of King William 1, known as 'The Conqueror', 1066-1087. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.