Waldock

Recorded in a wide variety of spellings including Waldock, Waldocke, Wallduck, Walduck, Walducke, and Waldoc, this is seemingly an Englisdh locational surname. It appears to translate as the "wall by the dock" from Middle English, however there does not appear to be any record of any such place in any of the known spellings, that could have given rise to the surname. Therefore either the place has now vanished, and is one of the three thousand or so lost medieval hamlets and villages in the British isles that have given rise to surnames, or it is a transposed spelling of somewhere else, the obvious one being the small town of Baldock in Hertfordshire. As Baldock itself is the French form of Bagdad (!), and as such was named by a Crusader in the 12th century, a change of surname spelling from Baldock to Waldock is not so far-fetched. It also has to be appreciated that little education existed over the centuries, and that local dialects were very thick, often giving rise to "sounds like" spellings of surnames particularly in London. It is in the surviving registers of the diocese of Greater London that most recordings of this name have been found. Early examples include Thomas Waldecke at St James Clerkenwell on November 22nd 1618, Elizabeth Walducke, who married Anthony Staple at St Giles Cripplegate, on October 13th 1656, and Phillip Waldock, a witness at the famous church of St Mary-le-Bone, Marylebone, on My 1st 1783.