This interesting and uncommon name is of Old Scandinavian origin, and represents a survival into the medieval period of surname formation in England of the Old Norse personal name or byname "Toki"; this was also found in Old Danish as "Toki, Tuki", and in Old Swedish as "Toke, Tuke". The origin of the name is somewhat obscure, but it is believed to be a short form of the popular Old Norse personal name "Thorkell", itself a contracted form of "Thorketill", composed of the Old Norse divine name "Thorr" (the name of the god of thunder in Scandinavian mythology), with "ketill" (sacrificial) cauldron. The short form of the name is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 in a variety of spellings: Tochi, Toke, Toche, Toca and Tuka, and one Ormus filius (son of) Toki is mentioned in medieval records of Durham in 1183. The modern surnames deriving from this source are Took(e)y and Tuck(e)y, and examples from London Church Registers include: the marriage of John Tuckey and Anne Dalton on May 14th 1547, at St. Margaret's, Westminster; and the christening of William Tuckey at St. Mary Somerset, on August 6th 1598. The family Coat of Arms depicts three gold lions passant in pale, armed and langued red, on a blue shield. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Toki, which was dated 1200, in the "Pipe Rolls of Suffolk", 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.

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