Stocks
A surname usually derived from Stock, referring to a tree stump, post, or stockade, with an early habit of appearing in the plural form.
The #7,107 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 65,579 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Stocks is the plural and genitive form of Stock. In old English usage, stock could mean a tree trunk, stump, post, or wooden frame, and by extension something fixed or rooted in place. The surname therefore likely began as a topographic or descriptive name for someone living by a stock, stumps, or a similar feature, or as a pluralized family form of Stock.
History
Nineteenth-century surname writers treated Stocks mainly as a variant or plural form of Stock, rather than as a wholly separate origin. The name also appears in old texts in literal senses such as tree stumps or wooden stocks, which helped preserve the word in surname studies. In modern English-speaking countries it remains less common than Stock, but is well established in Britain and abroad.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Chaucer and Spenser both used the word stocks in older literary senses, showing how ordinary vocabulary could become surname material.
From the historical record
“STOCKS, pi., and genit., of Stock, q. v. He swor her this, by stokkes and by stones. — Chaucer, Trail. & Cris., iii. 589- And all about old stockes and stubs of trees. — Spenser, Faerie Queene, I. ix. 34,.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)