this interesting surname of English origin with variant spellings Lake, Lack, Lakey, Lakie, etc. is a topographical name for someone who lived by a stream, deriving from the Old English pre 7th Century "lacu" meaning "stream". It may also be a locational name from a place named Lake in Wiltshire and Devon deriving from the Old English "lacu". The surname dates back to the early 13th Century, (see below). Further recordings include one Robert Attelake (1242), "The Pipe Rolls of Surrey", and William atte Lake (1273) "The Hundred Rolls of Oxfordshire". Church records include one Thomas Lakey who married Taylor in August 1681, at St. Marylebone, St. Mary Street, Marylebone Road, and Mary, daughter of Thomas and Jane Lakey, was christened on November 9th 1693, at St. Botolphs, Bishopsgate. Catherine Lakie (aged 45), a famine emigrant, sailed from Liverpool aboard the "John -R. Skiddy" bound for New York on March 16th 1846. Occasionally, the surname may be a dialectal variant of the locational name leckie in the parish of Gargunnock, in the former county of Stirlingshire from the Gaelic "leac" meaning "flagstone". The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard de la Lake, which was dated 1200, The Pipe Rolls of Shropshire, during the reign of King John known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.