This rare and picturesque surname is of German Ashkenazic origin and is one of the many ornamental names with the German "gold", meaning gold, as its first element. There is a large class of Ashkenazic family names that are described as "ornamental" names, indeed many of them with the prefix gold, for example, Goldberg (golden hill), Goldfri(e)d, (golden peace) Goldlust (golden pleasure) Goldzweig, (golden twig), and were generally chosen from a poetic standpoint. In the Jewish religion family names are unimportant, people being known as the son or daughter of a person, so when traditional Jews were obliged to take a family name by the local bureaucracy, they would let their imaginations run wild resulting in many fanciful names being created. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Anne Goldack (marriage to Daniel Hitchcock), which was dated August 19th 1790, St. Lukes', Old Street, Finsbury, during the reign of King George 111, "Farmer George", 1760 - 1820. 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.