Cox

Variations – Coxon, Cook, Cooks, Cookson
Racial Origin – English
Source – An Occupation

It might appear, at first glance, that some of the family names in this group had their origin in some reference to the cock, or rooster.  There is a bare possiblility that in some in stances the name Cox may have had such an origin.

In such cases it would come as a shortened form of “Cocker-son,” that is, “the son of a cock-fighter,” for cock fighting is a very ancient sport, and was well established in popular favour in medieval England, Or it might be derived from the form “Atte Cock,” or as we would put it today “at the Sign of the Cock,” for in their lack of ability to read the English of olden times called upon the full range of the animal and vegetable kingdoms with which to illustrate the signs by which to illustrate the signs by which they identified their shops and their inns.

But in the vast majority of cases, the forms of the forgoing family names indicate that they come from “cook,” There was no uniform method of spelling this word in the middle ages, and it was often necessary to judge whether the writer meant “cook” or “cock” bky the sense of his writing. Vut such a form as “Roger le Koc” or “le Coc” or “le Cok” occurring in the ancient lists of names kept for taxation or other purposes, has only one reasonable translation, “Roger the Cook.” And that form of name occurs with such frequency as to insure its perpetuation as a family name.  At that period “Roger le Cok” could never have been used with the meaning “Roger Atte Cok.”