Hawks
Usually a reduced form of Hawkins, ultimately from a pet form of Henry or Harry, though some families may have taken it from the bird-name hawk.
The #4,105 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 35,739 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Most evidence points to Hawks as a shortened form of Hawkins, a medieval diminutive of Hawk or Hawkin. In older English naming, Hawkin could function as a pet form linked to Henry or Harry, so Hawks is often an ancestral nickname surname rather than a direct reference to birds. A smaller possibility, reflected in some surname dictionaries, is that a few instances may be connected with the bird-name hawk or with places containing that element.
History
19th-century surname writers usually treated Hawks as a clipped or softened form of Hawkins, and the same explanation is still the safest general reading for most bearers. The surname appears in English records alongside other reduced forms such as Dawks from Dawkins and Perks from Perkins. Because short forms often developed independently in different counties, not every Hawks family must share exactly the same origin.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books explicitly grouped Hawks with a whole cluster of shortened names ending in -ks, like Perks and Dawks, as a common spelling reduction pattern.
From the historical record
“the bird, as Hawkshaw, Hawksby, Hawksley. HAWKS. See Hawkes. H AWKSWORTH. Rlaces in cos. York, Notts, &c. HAWKWOOD. Local: •' the wood fre- quented by hawks." For the anecdote of the celebrated warrior of the XIV. cent.. Sir John Hawkwood, being latinized Johannes Acutus, and re-translated into Sharp…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom