Jack (surname)


Jack has been used as a surname, primarily deriving from the Middle English and Older Scottish personal names such as Jak, Jagge and Jakke, in turn derived from pet forms of John, but perhaps in some cases Jack arose in Middle English from the Old French personal name Jacque.

Frequency

The occurrence of Jack as a surname is much less frequent than its use as a male forename. In 1990, in the United States, this surname is shared by about 0.007% of the population, though the geographical distribution of the surname has been broad since at least 1840, at which time there was a modest concentration of Jacks in Pennsylvania. Within the United Kingdom, the surname is considered almost exclusively Scottish. In the late-nineteenth century, the geographic distribution of Jacks in England was also broad, with concentration in North East England, Yorkshire and the Humber, and southern North West England.

Notable people with this surname