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I have considerable doubts about the theory that in northern England the Duke surname is a contraction of Marmaduke. I have a particular interest in this issue, as my own ancestors derive(16C) from the Wirral region of Cheshire - see separate post. This is north of the Trent and thus probably qualifies as ‘northern’.
The origin of the Marmaduke surname is uncertain and speculative - Reaney & Wilson’s Dictionary of English Surnames 3rd edn 1995 merely says that it _may_ derive from mael maedoc. Two of their earliest examples, however, are not even surnames at all. Marmaduke de Thweng and Marmaduke Darell did not sire progeny bearing Marmaduke as a surname.
Marmaduke Constable, who turns up in IGI searches for the Marmaduke surname, was apparently a de Lacy before adopting the name of his office as a family name.
As a surname it seems to have been always rare (238 entries in IGI for England), and by the time of the 1881 English census there were only 4 examples listed (3 in one household). Oddly enough it seems to have survived more strongly in the US.
Even in Yorkshire, the claimed heartland of Marmadukes (Reaney & Wilson p. 299), use as a surname was surprisingly rare (71 entries in IGI for YKS ), given the substantial use of Marmaduke as a first name. Ma(e)doc was more likely to be honored more directly in surnames, as in Maddock(s) and cognates (454 in IGI for YKS).
Reaney & Wilson say (p. 144) of the Duke surname that “ME forms cannot always be distinguished from those of Duck. In Yorkshire this may be a pet-form of Marmaduke”. The claim that the Duke surname in Yorkshire and other northern counties may be a contraction of Marmaduke does not, however, seem to be supported by any direct evidence of Marmaduke families transmuting into Dukes.
The only examples I can find of Marmaduke > Duke transformations which might seem to support the theory are (a) modern and (b) relate only to first names, where (especially in the US) many who saw themselves as burdened by what they saw as a pretentious or even pansy name gratefully adopted the more macho-sounding ‘Duke’ as a nick-name. It seems less likely that the many Yorkshire bearers of the Marmaduke first name have/had the same qualms about it, and the English upper classes have sufficient self-confidence to carry the name proudly, as in the family of the Fitzalan-Howards (Dukes of Norfolk).
Can anyone throw further light on this?
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