Where did it all start...?

It was not until the early Middle Ages that surnames were first used to distinguish between numbers of people bearing the same personal, or Christian, name. With the growth of documentation in the later Middle Ages, such names became essential and a person whose distinguishing name described his trace, his place of residence, his father's name, or some personal characteritic, passed that name on to his children and the surname became hereditary.

The surname Cockroft is a name of local origin, deriving from the place where an ancestor lived or possessed land. In this case it seems to refer to Cockcroft, a malet in the parish of Owston, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Thus, the name was used at first as a convenient means of identifying the original bearer by his place of residence. The name soon became changed, and it is now found in all its variants all over England, but especially in the Doncaster area.

Early references to the name include Thomas de Carrecroft, listed in the Poll Tax for Yorkshire in 1379 and John Normanton and Ann Cockcroft married in St. George's, Hanover Square, London in 1764. The prefix 'de' simply means 'of / from' and indicates the local origin of the name. Variants of the surname include Crowcroft and Cockcroft. The blazon of arms described below is associated with the name or a variant of it.

(c) James Cockroft, 2005