Hooks
Usually an occupational surname for a maker of hooks, though some families may come from Hook/Hooker lines or local place-based forms.
The #2,125 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 18,105 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Hooks is most plausibly connected with Middle English hook, from Old English hōc, meaning a hook, bend, or crook. As a surname, it would originally have referred to someone who made hooks or worked with hooked tools and fittings. Some 19th-century writers also treated Hooke/Hooker forms as related, but for Hooks the occupational explanation is the clearest and strongest.
History
The name appears in English surname collections beside Hook and Hooker, and later spread to North America through ordinary English migration. In American records it is often treated as an established family name rather than a spelling error, though it remains less common than Hook or Hooker. Genealogical sources sometimes note nearby forms such as Hooke, Hookes, and Hookey, which can complicate family lines.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The word hook has had a surprisingly wide surname life: it could describe a maker of hooks, but in some places it also fed into local names based on a bend in the land.
From the historical record
“Hooker. — (i) Occup. ' the booker,' a maker of hooks. There can be scarcely a doubl that this is the chief origin of the name, but there is a curious lack of references, (a) Local, 'the hooker,' one who lived by a 'hook in the land ; v.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances