HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE NAME LOVELOCK
Courtesy of Janet Hearle (nee Loveluck)


Long ago, when the population was small, people were only known by one name
and in Christian countries this name was given to the new born child at
his/her baptism; his "christian" name.  Later, when the population
increased, a single name was not enough to identify people, so other names
were added.  If this was not possible, for example, as in towns, men added
their occupation as a second name, and, in some cases, particular men were
known by a striking personal characteristic, which was added to their
original name. 

The name Lovelock is an old one, probably given to members of the family
because many of them had hair which fell into a curly lock on the
foreheads, and this remains as a characteristic of many of this family
today. 

The spelling of the family name was varied in olden days because few people
could read or write so they were dependent on their local keeping of
records for this.  Another factor was the influence of accents on
spelling as the scribes had to guess at relevant sounds with no help from
the applicant. 

The earliest known record of the family is in the "Hundred Rolls" of 1279
where a Williiam Lovelocke is mentioned.  In 1464 in Sir John Seymour's
"Administration of the Forest" of Savernake, one of his foresters was
"William Loveleke of Hyppingscombe". By the 17thC the name had generally
settled down to Lovelock. 

Today there seems to be two family names.  The main body spells the name
Lovelock.  However, one man migrated from Wiltshire to Margam in South Wales.
In the 18thC where the local people mainly spoke Welsh, they pronounced the
"o" as "u", so this name was pronounced Loveluck and spelt the same.  Hence
one branch of the original family living in South Wales adhered to the name
Loveluck and as time went on, many emigrated. So there is a small number of
people of this name to be found in various countries around the world, in
addition to the many people of the original Lovelock family.  Added to this
there have been numerous mistakes in spelling made in historical family
documents through the years, so that this sometimes causes difficulties for
researchers in family history.