Louca

This interesting name of ancient Greek origins was the forebear of the later highly popular "Lucas" - a surname found in Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and Flanders-Netherlands. The original spelling in the Romanic was "Loucas", the name being locational and regional and describing - "A man from Lucania". Oddly enough "Lucania" was not in Greece but Southern Italy, and presumably the original "Loucas" were early emigrants to Greece. In the pre-medieval Italian dialect the word means bright or shining. The surname also owes some popularity to St. Luke, and in fact one of the English variant spellings which derives from this source is the surname "Luck". The villages of Lucches (Tuscany) and Lucchese (Sicily) may also have provided some nameholders. Name recording in Greece being erratic or non existent pre 1900, the earliest registration would seem to be Zoitsa Loukas who married Georgious Niforopulos at Evoia, Khanion, Greece on June 1st 1875. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Everard Lucas, which was dated 1158, The Knight Templars Rolls for Hertfordshire, England, during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "the Church Builder", 1154-1189. 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.