Buck Family History

English: nickname from Middle English buc(ke) ‘male goat’ (Old English bucca) or a ‘male deer’ (Old English bucc). The goat was popularly associated with lecherous behaviour and the deer with timidity and speed. The surname may also be a shortened form of longer occupational names for example Roger le Bucmanger' ‘dealer in bucks or venison’ (Warwickshire 1221) or Walter Bucswayn perhaps ‘goatherd’ (Somerset 1327).

English: topographic name for someone who lived near a prominent beech tree such as Peter atte Buk (Suffolk 1327) from Middle English buk ‘beech’ (from Old English bōc).

German and Dutch (Limburg): from a personal name a short form of Burkhard (see Burkhart). North German and Danish: nickname for a fat man from Middle Low German būk ‘belly’. Compare Bauch.

German and Dutch (Limburg): variant of Bock. German: variant of Puck in the sense ‘defiant spiteful’ or ‘stubborn’.

German: topographic name from the field name Buck ‘hill’. Germanized form of Sorbian Buk: topographic name from buk ‘beech-tree’.