Brooks in my family tree
English: topographic name for someone who lived by a brook or stream, from Old English broc brook or, by extension, water meadow. Water meadow or marsh is the regular meaning of the Low German cognate brook (Dutch broek; German Bruch, Old High German bruoh). The English spelling Brooke preserves a trace of the Old English dative singular case, originally used after a preposition (e.g. at the brook), and forms in -(e)s preserve a genitive (i.e. of the brook). Both nominative and dative singular forms are widely distributed throughout England, but especially common in West and South Yorkshire; the genitive variant Brooks, Brookes, on the other hand, has a much more even distribution. Brooks is also borne by Ashkenazic Jews, presumably as an anglicization of one or more like-sounding Jewish surnames.
Variants: Brock, Broke, Brooke, Brookes, Brooks, Bruck; Brockman, Brookman; Brooker, Brucker; Brooking (Devon).
Cognates: Dutch, Flemish: Broek, Broekman, Ten Broek, Ten Broeke, Van den Broek, Van den Broeke. Frisian: Broekema, Broekstra, Brookstra. German: Bruch, Bruckmann; Brücher. Low German: Brock, Brook, Brookmann.
Some modern bearers of this name, who preserve the spelling Broke, are descended from Sir Richard Broke (died 1529) of Broke Hall in Suffolk, who was Chief Baron of the Exchequer to Henry VIII in 1526.
English bearers of the name Brockman can trace their ancestry to a certain John Brockman who was granted lands in Kent by Richard II.
Another Brooks in my family tree
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