Luke

This notable surname derives from the given name "Lucas", a Latin form of the Greek "Loucas" meaning man from Lucania. Lucania was a region of Southern Italy that was perhaps originally named in an Italic dialect with a word meaning bright, shining. The Latin form of the name, Lucas, was a great favourite as a personal name in the Middle Ages, due in part to the popularity of St. Luke the Evangelist. St. Luke was a doctor and a painter, and there is an ancient suggestion that the name means "a patient person". Lucas is held to be the learned form of Luke, and is found in France in the same spelling, from where it may be locational from Luick in Flanders, for example Lucas de Luke appears in the Pipe Rolls of London (1274). London Church Records list the marriage of Christopher Lucas to Margaret Medcalfe, on January 27th 1571 at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. A Coat of Arms granted to a Lucas family is silver, a fess between six red annulets. The Crest is out of a gold ducal coronet, a red dragon's head and shoulders, wings erect. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Euerard Lucas, which was dated 1153, in the "Records of the Templars in England in the 12th Century", Hertfordshire, during the reign of King Stephen, known as "Count of Blois", 1135 - 1154. 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.