Brooks
A common surname meaning “of the brook” or “from the brook,” originally a local name for someone who lived by a stream.
The #82 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 1,227 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Brooks is the plural or possessive-looking form of Brook, from Old English brōc and Middle English brook, meaning a stream or small running water. In surname use, it typically pointed to someone who lived near a brook or came from a place identified by one. Some older writers also treated the final -s as a genitive or patronymic ending, but the simplest explanation is that it is a local surname from brook.
History
The name is very widespread in England and later became common in Scotland, Ireland, and North America. Historical surname writers sometimes grouped Brooks with other local surnames that gained an added final -s, and some forms may also reflect place-names such as Brooks or similar localities. In the United States it is a long-established common surname and ranks among the more frequent surnames nationwide.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Nineteenth-century surname scholars debated whether names like Brooks were originally possessive forms such as “Brook’s son,” but many modern treatments simply take it as a surname built from the word brook plus a common final -s.
From the historical record
“mination MAX. BROOKS. BROOKES. See Brook. BROOM. BROOME. Some families claim to be of Plautagcnet origin with an anglicised name; but the name is more likely to be local, from one of the parishes so called in cos. Norfolk, Sufiblk, Stafford, BecUbrd, and Durham. BROOMAN. In Domesd. Bruman. Fr. "a sonne-in-law." Cotgr.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United KingdomNotable people named Brooks
- Mel Brooks (b. 1926)
- Garth Brooks (b. 1962)
- CM Punk (b. 1978)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.