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Herk

Discussion of the name

Herk appears to be an Old Norse masculine name related to a group of words including herki ‘lazy, listless person’, herkja ‘to do with difficulty’ and ModN herk ‘bungler’ (von Feilitzen 1937: 289-90; cf. Fellows Jensen 1968: 139).

The are no pre-Domesday occurrences of this name in the PASE corpus.

Bibliography

Fellows Jensen 1968: Gillian Fellows Jensen, Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (Copenhagen: I Kommission hos Akademisk Forlag, 1968)

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Herch, Hercus

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Herch

  Phillimore edition: Herch, Herki

  Alecto edition: Herch

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire	Phil. ref.	Vill	DB Spelling	Holder 1066	Lord 1066	Tenant-in-Chief 1086	1086 Subtenant	Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value	Conf.	Show on Map
Shire Buckinghamshire	Phil. ref. 23,23	Vill Littlecote	DB Spelling Herch	Holder 1066 Herk 'of Littlecote'	Lord 1066 Beorhtric, man of Queen Eadgyth	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Miles Crispin	1086 Subtenant Robert de Noyers	Fiscal Value 1.00	1066 Value 1.25	1086 Value 0.75	Confidence C	Map
Shire Hampshire	Phil. ref. 2,15	Vill Fareham	DB Spelling Hercus	Holder 1066 Herk 'of Fareham'	Lord 1066 Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 Walkelin, bishop of Winchester	1086 Subtenant Geoffrey 'the man of Bishop Walkelin'	Fiscal Value 4.00	1066 Value 2.24	1086 Value 2.24	Confidence C	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

People of this name

• Herk 2 - Herk ‘of Fareham’ (Hants), fl. 1066
• Herk 3 - Herk ‘of Littlecote’ (Bucks.), fl. 1066