Hack Family History

German and Dutch: from the ancient Germanic personal name Hac(c)o, a short form of a compound name beginning with the element hag ‘hedge enclosure’. German and Dutch: occupational name for a butcher or a woodcutter (see Hacker). North German: occupational name for a peddler (see Haack).

North German: topographic name for someone who lived by a hedge (see Heck). North German: perhaps also a topographic name from hach hack ‘dirty boggy water’. English: from the early Middle English personal name Acke or (with prosthetic H-) Hake, which is an Anglo-Scandinavian pet form of Old Scandinavian Áskell (see Haskell).

English: alternatively a borrowing of Middle Dutch Hakke, a de-nasalized variant of Hanke, which is a Flemish and Picard pet form of John. English: nickname from Middle English hak ‘unsparing ruthless’.

Jewish (Ashkenazic): metonymic occupational name from Yiddish hak ‘axe’.