Cox (surname)

Cox
The hills found in Carmarthenshire, Wales, where Cox may have been a topographic name for a man "from the red hills".
Pronunciation/ˈkɒks/ KOKS
Language(s)Old English or Welsh
Origin
MeaningPossibly derived from cock or coch, and means "from the hills", or from cocc, which means "the little", or derived from coch, meaning "the Red".
Region of originEngland or Wales

The surname Cox is of English or Welsh origin, and may have originated independently in several places in Great Britain, with the variations arriving at a standard spelling only later. There are also two native Scottish & Irish surnames which were anglicised into Cox.[1][2][3]

An early record of the surname dates from 1556 with the marriage of Alicea Cox at St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster, London.[4] Cox is the 69th-most common surname in the United Kingdom.[5]

  1. ^ "GulliverIreland.com". Archived from the original on 19 August 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  2. ^ "Cox Name Meaning & Cox Family History at Ancestry.com". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  3. ^ "GulliverIreland.com". Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  4. ^ "Surname Database: Cox Last Name Origin". The Internet Surname Database. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  5. ^ "Cox Meaning and Distribution". forebears.co.uk. Retrieved 25 January 2014