This unusual surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from a place in Lancashire called Pickup (Bank), now styled Yate and Pickup Bank. Recorded as "Pycoppe" in "Records of the Manors of Henry de Lacy", dated 1296, and as "Pickope Bank" in "Place Names of Lancashire", dated 1595, the name derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "pic", peak, point, with "copp", top, summit; hence, "hill with a peak or sharp point". The additional element "bank", comes from the Middle English "banke", bank, ridge. Locational surnames were originally given to the lord of the manor, or as a means of identification to those who left their place of origin to settle elsewhere. Regional and dialectal influences subsequently produced many variations in the spelling of the name, which, in the modern idiom, range from Piccop, Picopp and Peacop to Pickhup and Pickup. In 1584, one Roger Piccop, of Over Whiteley, was noted in the Wills Records of Chester, and on July 17th 1589, the marriage of William Pickup and Ann Pickup took place in Rochdale, Lancashire. A Coat of Arms granted to William Pickup of Accrington, Lancashire, is an azure shield with three catherine wheels within two bendlets, all between two gold stags' heads erased, a bordure wavy of the last, the Crest being a stag's head couped proper in front thereof a demi catherine wheel azure. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Elizabeth Piccopp, which was dated August 1st 1564, marriage to John Bancroft at Burnley, Lancashire, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. 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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