Weeks is an English surname of Germanic origin with several known derivations:
A patronymic from the Middle English personal name Wikke, which is in turn a short form of any of various Germanic personal names formed with the element wig, meaning battle, war.[2]
A variant of Wick, which is an English topographic name for someone who lived in an outlying settlement dependent on a larger village; from the Old Englishwic an early loan word from the Latin vicus, or a habitational name from a place named with this word.[2] Examples of such places include Week Green in Cornwall, and Wick in Somerset. The village of Giggleswick, England, named for Gikel's dwelling or dairy farmAs the term was especially used to denote an outlying dairy farm or salt works, it may also have been an occupational name for someone who worked at such a facility. The addition of a final "s" to topographical and locational surnames was a usual medieval practice, denoting one who was resident at a place, rather than from it.[1]
An Anglification of the ScandinavianVik, itself either a habitational name from any of the numerous Norwegian or Swedish farmsteads named with Old Norsevík, meaning small bay, inlet, or (in Swedish) a topographic or ornamental name.[2] An example of this is the Scottish Highland town of Wick, (Scots: Week or Weik)[3]
Symon Weeks, of Devonshire, a worsted weaver born in 1618, who emigrated to Barbados in February 1634 aged only 16. He is currently known to be the first person with the surname Weeks or etymologies of it to travel to the new world thus becoming a common ancestor to many with the name or derivatives of it in North America.
Henry Witch of London who married Ann Rugrove at St Olaves, Southwark, on 26 June 1774.
Cognates and variations
Names etymologically related to Weeks include but may not be limited to: Weekes, Wicks, Weech, Week, Weeke, Wich, Wych, Weetch, Wick, Wickes, Wix, Wike, Witch, Wykes, Whick,[1] and Vik.[2]
Today the name is most common (indicated in frequency per million) in Australia (188), the United States (181), the United Kingdom (156), Canada (143), and New Zealand (71).
Globally, the city with the largest numbers of people named Weeks is Bristol, United Kingdom, located in the south western county of Somerset.[5]
In the US, there were 51,976 people in 1990 with the last name Weeks, making it the 675th most common last name. The table below compares this with the corresponding enumerations of related names at that time in the US.[6]
Name
Number
Weeks
51,976
Wicks
12,291
Wick
8,255
Wike
2,629
Wix
2,079
Weekes
1,957
Wyke
917
Wickes
887
Weech
826
Vik
489
Wykes
336
Notable people with the surname
Alan Weeks (1923–1996), British television sports reporter and commentator
Bert Weeks (1918–1990), mayor of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, from 1975 to 1982
Bob Weeks (born 1960), editor of Scoregolf magazine
Brent Weeks, writer of fantasy books including best-selling The Night Angel trilogy.
Carl Weeks (1876 - 1962), American cosmetics tycoon.
Christopher Weeks (born 1987), Chef, American Bassist, African American Descendant of Leonard Weeks
David Weeks, former Conservative Leader of Westminster City Council
Don Weeks (1938–2015), longtime host of the WGY Morning News in Schenectady, New York
Don Weeke (born 1947), American fiber and gourd artist
Edgar Weeks (1839–1904), military officer, judge and politician from Michigan
This page lists people with the surnameWeeks. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
