Origin of the Cheek/Chick Surname

he Cheek and Chick surnames probably originated in southern England during the Middle Ages.  Today, "Chick" is much rarer than "Cheek," but both spellings exist in the early records, and were often used interchangeably.  Other spelling variations include Cheak, Cheeke, Cheke, and Chich.

Prior to 1700, the Cheek/Chick surnames were most common in southwestern England, particularly in the counties of Devon, Dorest, Somerset, and Hampshire, and on the Isle of Wight.  Scattered examples can also be found in the southeast, the West Midlands, and East Anglia.  There seems to be little or no historical evidence of persons named Cheek or Chick in northern England, Scotland, Wales, or Ireland.

Early examples of these surnames include Aeluric CHEC of Bury, Suffolk (Domesday Book, 1086 A.D.); Alwin CHIC of Kent (tax roll, 1198); Walter CHIKE of Oxford College (1271); Alyhiva CHEKE, sold meadow land on the moor of Scheperugge, Wiltshire (1271); Walter Adam CHEKE, a scrivener in Malvern, Warwickshire (1285); Henry CHEKE, a landowner in Frome, Somerset (Assize Rolls, 1320); Richard CHIKE of Wyvering Manor, Hampshire (1377); William CHEKE, master of the ship Bartholomew of Plymouth, Devon (1378); Sir Thomas CHICHE, Sheriff of Kent (1391) and Bailiff of Canterbury (1404); and Sir Alfred CHEEKE, Lord of Ongar Manor, Essex (Manorial Rolls, 1410).

Notable Families

Records of the Cheeks go back more than 700 years on the Isle of Wight.  They owned Mottistone Manor from 1425 to 1621 and also held estates at Whippingham and Merstone.  Some members of the family relocated to Essex and Suffolk counties in the 1500's.  One notable member of this line was Sir John Cheke (1514-1557), a famous scholar who taught Greek at Cambridge University and served as a tutor to the young Prince of Wales, later King Edward VI.

The Isle of Wight Cheeks are said to be the descendants of a legendary ancestor, "Hugh de-Cheke-on-the-Hill", who came to the Isle of Wight from Northamptonshire in the 1200's.  The story may be little more than myth, but The Historic Peerage of England by Sir Harris Nicolas (1857) does mention an ancient family named CIOCHE or CHOKE who held estates in Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire, and Bedfordshire in the 12th-13th centuries.  Descendants may have included Sir Richard CHOKE (d. abt. 1483) of Long Ashton, Somerset, as well as the CHOKE (a.k.a. CHALK or CHAKE) families of Abingdon, Berkshire.

Another aristocratic family with ties to Northhamptonshire are the CHICHELEY's, often pronounced "Chickley", who were the descendants of Thomas Chichele of Higham-Ferrers.  The possible relationship between the various families of Cheeks, Chicks, Chickleys, Chokes and Chalks in southern England merits further investigation.

Prevalence

The Cheek/Chick surnames have never been very common outside of a few places like the Isle of Wight in England, and parts of North Carolina.  According to recent census data, there are only 4,200 people in the United Kingdom named Cheek or Cheak, and 1,300 named Chick, out of a total population of 58 million.  The 2000 U.S. census recorded approximately 22,000 instances of Cheek, Cheeks, and Cheak, and 5,800 of Chick and Chicks, out of a population of 281 million.

Etymology

Most English surnames evolved during the Middle Ages from nicknames like "John the Tailor" and "William John's son."  The majority of English surnames are patronyms ("son of"), e.g., Johnson, Thompson, Williams, Edwards; occupations, e.g., Miller, Taylor, Smith, Farmer, Cooper, Butcher; physical descriptions, e.g., White, Brown, Black, Bigg, Little, Short, Young; and place names, e.g., Thornton, Cockerham, Winchester, London.

What about Cheek and Chick?  They are not patronyms and do not describe any discernible occupation.  Therefore, they are probably either descriptions or placenames (although another possibility could be a borrowing from a foreign word, perhaps French).  This leads to several different theories about the origin of the Cheek and Chick surnames.

1. The Body Part Theory. 

Many English surnames originated as descriptive nicknames for personal characteristics such as hair color, complexion, height, age, generation, or even personality traits.  There are also a few odd surnames that directly refer to body parts, such as Head and Hand.  So, perhaps "Cheek" literally means "cheek."  The first Cheek may have had a prominent facial feature like a scar, round cheeks or a large jaw.  This is the explanation given in Dictionary of American Family Names (Oxford Univ. Press.)

2. The Chicken Theory.

According to A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames by Charles Wareing Bardsley (1901), the surname "Chick" was short for "chicken."  Like the more common surname "Cocke," the name "Chick" might have evolved as a humorous or descriptive nickname for someone with chicken-like characteristics, such as red hair or a plucky, self-assured attitude.  On the other hand, the earliest examples of "Chick" cited by Mr. Bradsley -- Walter Chike at Oxford College (1273) and Thomas Chicke of Somerset (1327) -- were probably pronounced more like "cheek" during the Middle Ages.  In Medieval English, the letter "i" had a long "ee" sound.  The Cheek family of Debenham, Suffolk, used a coat of arms featuring a rooster, which might have been a pun on the similarity of the words cheek and chick.  Visual puns were common on coats of arms.  The pun goes over our heads today because of changes in pronunciation.

3. The Place Name Theory.

The Cheek and Chick surnames are strongly regional.  They are most common in southern England, especially the southwest, and rare or absent elsewhere, at least historically.  Regional surnames often come from the names of towns, villages, or local landmarks.  For example, the name "Cheke-on-the-Hill" (legendary ancestor of the Isle of Wight family) certainly sounds like a geographic feature, although it doesn't appears on any modern maps.  But there are many other towns and villages in southern England with names like Cheek or Chick, including Checkendon, Checkley, Checkstone, Chich, Chichacott, Chicheley, Chichester, Chickerell, Chickering, Chicklade, Chicksgrove, Chickney, Chicksands, Chickston, Chickward, and Chickwell.

Although people usually assume that the Cheek surname refers, literally, to the cheek on one's face, the placename theory may have the stronger argument.  It's clear that the Cheek and Chick surnames are closely related and were spelled interchangeably for hundreds of years.  This makes sense when you realize that the word "Chick" was pronounced very much like "Cheek" in the Middle Ages.  Most people at the time were illiterate, and even educated people did not necessarily spell their own names consistently.  Shakespeare spelled his name many different ways, sometimes using different spellings in the same document!  The concept of standardized spelling is a fairly recent development in the English language: for most of history, no one was particularly concerned about the "proper" way to spell anything.  So, there is no good reason to make an artificial distinction between the Cheek and Chick surnames based on our modern understanding of these words are pronounced and spelled.

The various "Chick" and "Check" placenames in southern England probably evolved from several different Celtic and Anglo-Saxon personal names and words.  However, there is an interesting clue in the Celtic language of Cornwall, which is closely related to the extinct Celtic languages once spoken throughout southwestern England.  In Cornish, chy means "house" and keas means "enclosed by a hedge."  Put together, chy-keas ("cheeks") could be a house surrounded by a hedge, which was a common type of defensive fortification.  In Anglo-Saxon, the word for a fortified house was tun, which turned into the English word "town."  The word chy is the basis of many placenames in Cornwall, such as Chycoose ("wood house") and Chegwidden ("white house").  (See A Glossary of Cornish Names by Rev. John Bannister (1871).)  Ironically, our unusual surname might have nothing to do with either strange facial features or poultry!  It may come from a Celtic word as ordinary as "house" or "town."

More articles...

Recommended British Links:

GenUKI (U.K. & Ireland genealogy)
Genealogy Guide for the U.K.
U.K. National Archives
Britannia.com (British History)
bbc.co.uk (British History)
Roman-Britain.org (Celtic tribes)
The Domesday Book online
Churches Conservation Trust
Pictures of England.com (historic maps)