The surname of BIRKBECK was a locational name 'of Birkbeck' so called from the beck or streamlet, that flowed through the birch trees. This is a Cumberland surname. Local names usually denoted where a man held his land, and indicated where he actually lived. The name was derived from the Old Norman word BIRKI (birch) and BEKKR (stream). The earliest hereditary surnames in England are found shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and are of Norman French origin rather than native English. On the arrival of the Normans they identified themselves by references to the estates from which they came in northern France. These names moved rapidly on with their bearers into Scotland and Ireland. Others of the Norman Invaders took names from the estates in England which they had newly acquired. Early records of the name mention BIRKBEC (without surname) who was documented in the year 1185, County Cumberland, and William Birbeck appears in Lancashire in the year 1273. Later instances of the name mention Adam Byrkbeke, who registered at Oxford University in the year 1507 and Thomas Birkbeck who married Susannah Evratt at St. George's, Hanover Square, London in the year 1771. Most of the European surnames in countries such as England, Scotland and France were formed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The process had started somewhat earlier and had continued in some places into the 19th century, but the norm is that in the tenth and eleventh centuries people did not have surnames, whereas by the fifteenth century most of the population had acquired a second name. The associated arms are recorded in Sir Bernard Burkes General Armory. Ulster King of Arms in 1884. |
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