Linacre is a surname. Over time, the name has been spelt a variety of different ways including: Linaker, Lineker, Linneker, Liniker, Linnecar, Leneker, Linnegar, Lineker, Lynaker, Lynacre, Lynneker and Lenniker. As of about 2016, 411 people bore one or another variant of this surname in Great Britain and 6 in Ireland; in 1881, 155 people in Great Britain bore one.[1]

Etymology

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Lynacre Coat of Arms

The surname is of medieval English origin. It originated as a locative name, given to people from places called Linacre. Such place-names in turn derive from Middle English līn ('flax') and aker ('field'), thus denoting places associated with a flax-field.[1][2]

The name is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, which mentions a Cambridgeshire landholder named Godwin de Linacra.[1][3]

The Linacre family was also prominent in the villages of Hackenthorpe and Eckington in Derbyshire in the 13th and 14th centuries.[citation needed] By 1881, within Great Britain, the name was mostly concentrated in Derbyshire, Lancashire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire.[1]

People

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People that bear the surname include:

References

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  1. ^ a b c d The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ed. by Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, and Peter McClure, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), III, p. 1592 [s.v. Linacre]; ISBN 978-0-19-967776-4.
  2. ^ "Surname Database: Lineker Last Name Origin".
  3. ^ "Godwine 285".