Dykes (surname)

Dykes is a British surname which may originate from the hamlet of Dykesfield in Burgh-by-Sands, Cumbria in the north of England. Due to its close proximity to the English and Scottish borders, the surname Dykes has also been found in Scottish lowlands throughout the ages. The first family to bear the surname (for which written records survive) are said to have lived in the area prior to William the Conqueror's Norman conquest of England, with the oldest surviving written document placing them in Dykesfield at the end of the reign of Henry III. The family took their surname from Hadrian's Wall, also referred to in some texts as Hadrian's Dyke. The great wall crossed Great Britain from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway Firth and forms part of the border for Dykesfield.

At this early period of history, however, the surname existed in a different form from the modern day; del Dykes, literally meaning 'of the Dykes', indicating the region from where the family came. A charter, bearing the first known recorded instance of the surname, comes from either the reign of Henry III or Edward I, though the exact date of the record is unknown. It does, however, reveal that land owned by one Robert del Dykes at Burgh was conveyed to one William del Monkys.

An alternative derivation for the name is that it is from the common personal name "Dick" (a diminutive of "Richard"). It would therefore share its origin with a number of similar names such as Dike, Dicks, Dix, Dickson, Dixon, Dickins, Dickens and Dickinson.

The earliest historical records are from a family which was moderately wealthy for the time. Robert del Dykes owned land during the reign of Edward I, and in 1379, during the reign of Richard II, Adam del Dykes owned land further east in Yorkshire.

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