Gerken
A German surname most often understood as a short form of names beginning with Ger-, especially Gerhard.
The #7,807 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 72,817 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Gerken is a German surname formed as a diminutive or family-name form of a personal name. The historical sources most strongly connect it with Gerhard, while older writers also mention it alongside related Ger- names such as Gerke and Gehrke. The first element ger- goes back to an old Germanic word for a spear, so the underlying name sense is roughly “spear-hard” or “strong with the spear.”
History
German surname dictionaries and name studies often treat Gerken as part of a larger family of northern German names built from short forms of Ger- given names. The name appears in older records in several spellings, reflecting regional pronunciation and spelling habits. In English-language scholarship it has sometimes been confused with other names, so the exact line of descent is not always stated the same way.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some older surname writers grouped Gerken with a whole cluster of German names ultimately linked to the same Ger- first element, which is why the spelling family is so broad.
From the historical record
“Gerdrht, Gadrht, f. (Gertrude) Gerke, m. ; Gerken, fam. n. German, old fam. n. Geske, f. dimin. of Geso, Gesa, \ Giso (Gisbert)”
— British Family Names: their origin and meaning (2nd ed.)