Hake
Usually a medieval short form of the Scandinavian personal name Hacon/Hakon, later used as a surname.
The #8,432 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 78,802 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Hake is generally taken to come from the old personal name Hake, which English writers connected with Scandinavian Hacon/Hakon. In that view, it began as a nickname or byname derived from a given name and then became hereditary as a surname. Some older sources treat it simply as a contraction or reduced form of Hacon.
History
19th-century surname scholars noted Hake alongside related forms such as Hacon, Haket, Hack, and Hackett, and treated these as part of a Scandinavian name group in England. The name is uncommon today but survives in modern surname use, especially in Britain and the United States. Because early authors sometimes differed on the exact spelling path, the surname is best treated as a traditional northern English/Scandinavian-influenced family name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bardsley explicitly groups Hake with Hacon and calls both once-familiar medieval personal names that later faded from everyday use.
From the historical record
“Haire, Esq., M.D. HAKE. Doubtless a contraction of Hacon. HAKEWILL. Probably Ilackwell, a parish in Essex. HALDANE. Ilalfdene, a name occurrino' in the Saxon annals, is considered by Fer- guson to imply a Danish extraction on one side only — "half Dane." Hence perhaps the surname of the Scottish family. Among the…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom