Hockey

This is a rare ancient and traditional English place name of pre 7th century origins. It derives from a now ‘lost’ place or places called Hocceg, pronounced ‘hockey’ and translating as a low lying island (-eg) covered with mallow plant (hocc-). It is not knowingly connected with the Irish surname Haughey, although the pronunciation is almost identical. Hockey, the surname, almost certainly has nothing to do with (field) hockey, a sport which may have had French origins, and was not formally registered until 1861 in Blackheath, London.

According to recent demographic surveys, the Hockey surname is found predominantly in the western counties of Somerset, Dorset and Gloucester, the area around the River Severn, as well as the southern county of Hampshire. Our research highlights the area around the town of Wincanton in Somerset, where the surname has been recorded for at least four centuries, but like many surnames, is probably most recorded in the city of London. Wincanton is not far from wetlands known as ‘The Somerset Levels’. For many centuries this area was an ‘inland sea,’ with a number of islands, or villages on islands, of which Hockey may have been one.

Some five thousand British and Irish surnames are believed to originate from now ‘lost’ villages of which the only reminder in the 21st century is often the surname itself. No place called Hockey appears in the ‘Lost medieval village list for England’, but this is not unusual. Place name surnames were originally either land- owner names, or were names given to other people as easy identification after they left their home village, to live somewhere else. The Somerset Levels like the Fens of East Anglia, were gradually drained from the 13th century onwards, resulting in a change of use from probably fresh water fishing to farming. Recordings taken from surviving church registers include John Hockey who married Elizabeth Serjeant, at Weston Bampeylde, Somerset, on October 7th 1639, and Roger Hockey, whose son John was christened at Horsington, Somerset, on April 19th 1761. The earliest recording we have been able to find is that of Isabell Hockey, christened at St Stephan’s church, Coleman Street, city of London, on August 2nd 1546, in the reign of King Henry V111th (1510 – 1547)