Flecknoe

Recorded in several forms including Flackno, Flecknoe, Flecknell, Fecknall, and others, this is an English locational surname. It originates from the little village of Flecknoe in the county of Warwickshire. Like the village of Fleckney in Leicester there appears to be a Norse-Viking element in the place name, and hence the later surname. This is the word 'fleca' meaning a hurdle, plus the Olde English pre 7th century 'halh', meaning a place and possibly an island. This not an island as such but more probably an island formed by hurdles or fences and in a transferred sense of a farm surrounded by fencing, at a time when in general livestock roamed at will on the common lands. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to ascribe exact meanings to place names of a thousand or more years ago. The village is first recorded in Domesday Book for 1086 as 'Flechnoe', a spelling which it has retained over nine centuries, making it almost unique in that respect. Early examples of the surname recordings taken from the early surviving registers include: James Flacknell, christened at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on July 11th 1595, and Mary Flecknell, who married Walter Knott at St Lukes, Finsbury, on June 17th 1788.