This is a very ancient name, originally from the Greek "Louk as", (man from Lucania), which was a region of Southern Italy. The latin form of the name, Lucas was a great favourite as a personal name in the Middle Ages, due in part to the popularity of St. Luke the Evangelist. St.Luke was a doctor and a painter and there is an ancient suggestion that the name means "a patient person". Lucas is held to be the learned form of Luke and is found in France in the same spelling from where it may occasionally be locational, e.g. Lucas de Luk, from Luic in Flanders (Pipe Rolls of London, 1274). The name development has included Simon Luk (1286, Suffolk), John Louk (1327, ibid.) and Robert Lukes (1376, London). Thomas Lukes was christened on the 27th April 1676 at St. Mary Somerset, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Lucke. which was dated 1279, the Cambridgeshire Hundred Rolls, during the reign of King Edward I, The Hammer of the Scots, 1272 - 1307. 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.

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