Parkes
A surname that can mean either “at the park” or a shortened form of Parker/Perkins-like names.
The #9,940 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 95,116 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Parkes is usually explained in one of two ways. It may be a reduced or altered form of Park, used for someone who lived by or worked at a park, or it may belong to a wider family of names connected with Peter, including Parkin, Perkins, and Parkinson. Some 19th-century writers also suggested a Norman place-name origin, pointing to places in Normandy such as Parcs or Paves, but that explanation is less certain.
History
The name appears in English records in several spellings, including Park, Parks, and Parkes, and early writers noted that these forms were often interchanged. In Scotland and Ireland, surnames beginning with Parkes are also found among later records, though that does not by itself settle the original derivation. Because the surname could have arisen independently in more than one way, its family history may differ from one bearer to another.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname scholars specifically warned that Parkes can be hard to pin down, because it may be either a true place-based name or just a shortened form of a longer surname.
From the historical record
“ever, a corruption of Parkinson. PARKES. ]\Iay belong to the series, Park, Parkins, Perkins, Parkinson, kc, from Peter, the Christian name ; or may be local, from Pai'cs, near Pont-^E^•eque, or Paves, near AlenQon, both in Normandy. PARKHOUSE. A house in or near some park. PARKHURST. A place in the Isle of Wight.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom