Forgotten Wolves of Wilkinaland: A New Etymology Hypothesis for the Wilkinson Surname (And Variants) in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales

By J.C. Wilkinson

The prevailing explanation that all forms of Wilk/Wilkin beginning surnames being variants of “diminutive for William” or “son of diminutive for William”—and the presumption that this is of Norman in origin—is simply not accurate.

J.C. (Max) Wilkinson presents this provocative thesis in his book, challening an etymological presumption that is seemingly ubiquitous, woefully incomplete, and arguably almost totally wrong for the vast majority of “Wilk” root surname lineages.

Instead, he submits that there are persuasive reasons rooted in mytho-history and period literature from the Anglo-Saxon and Norse traditions supporting an ethno-linguistic heritage from the Slavic Wylte/Weleti/Wilzi tribe. This tribe, assimilated into the Frisian and Danish dark age kingdoms, is ultimately the source of the “Wilk” root surnames in the British Isles and Ireland, as well as in the northern continental antecedent locations (i.e. Denmark, Frisia and Pomerania) whose migrations and invasions brought these names to England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Join the author as he seeks to unravel the origins of his own family name and strives to provide answers for his children as well as for future generations of all families bearing “Wilk” root surnames.

Family piety and a deep knowledge of history are too often missing in 21st-century America, and we suffer as a result. I hope Max Wilkinson’s explorations of his family roots, which are now woven now into the rich tapestry that is the United States, inspires others to undertake similar journeys.
—George Weigel, Bestselling author of
Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II

[The] trail... has now been blazed.... [T]his first-rate new analysis Forgotten Wolves of Wilkinaland.... deftly leads the reader on a scientifically and historically based journey to where the name ‘Wilkinson’ originated ... Wilkinson traces... with amazing precision and compelling evidence back 1,500 years... journey[ing] through ancient European tribes... to Norsemen to Scotsmen, Irishmen and eventually Americans. Wilkinson wrote his book to help his children understand... their roots .... [and] he has provided us all with a unique opportunity to learn the origins of our roots and our name.
—Dave Wilkinson, author of
Those Audacious Wilkinson Brothers

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480895911

J.C. Wilkinson

J.C. (Max) Wilkinson is a father of three, Catholic Christian, a Constitutional conservative, a former U.S. Army Infantry and Engineer officer (LTC, ret.), and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a lay genetic and traditional genealogist and holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of South Dakota and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Iowa. He lives and works as an attorney in Virginia and West Virginia, and has done so for the last twenty-four years.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 J.C. (Max) Wilkinson.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

the information contained in this book and in some cases, names

of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-9590-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9591-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020917496

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/06/2020

For my chil

dren:

Rosemary, Samuel, and Nicholas

That you may know your true name

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1    Genealogyand Genetics

How My Surname Etymology Journey Began

My Recurring Links to Ulster and the Hebrides

2    The Mytho-Historic Evidence

In Search of Wilkinaland

3    The Gaelic Evidence

Norse Influence on Gaelic Names and Place-Names

Viking or Norman Era Irish Instances of Uilcin in Place-Names

Caislean Uilcin (Limerick)

Wilkinstown (Meath)

Baile Uilcin (Wexford)

Alternative Ethnolinguistic Support? Proto-Celtic to Gaelic Olc/Uilc /Uilcin/Uiginn

4    The Anglo-Saxon Evidence

Pre-Norman Instances of Wilk in Anglo-Saxon Place-Names

Domesday Book References Proper

Qualified or Non-Domesday Book References

5    The Cambro-Norman Error

The (Dubious?) Cambro-Norman Theory of Origin: Pant Wilkyn in Wales—Cambro-Norman or Preconquest Norse Place-Name?

6    Conclusions

What Does It All Mean?

Afterword

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Preface

Having made their pilgrimage to the island beyond the island, some of those Bronze Age visitors had felt the need to make and leave a permanent mark, perhaps a visible proof of their attendance there. Still without any version of the written word, pictures and symbols were their only option. Central to what they wanted remembered after they had gone were the boats and ships that brought them there, and carried them away again.

—Neil Oliver

The Vikings: A New History (2013), 84

(on the Bronze Age rock art of Gotland)

My children are the principal reason I took up this research and have compiled this little book. As a divorced father, one cannot help but feel the disconnect that the severances and gaps in parenting time cause. Life is filled with all the routine things that must be done or are more exciting or more desired to be done. Sitting down to discuss the esoteric origins of family surname etymology in detail is not high on the list of things kids have patience for these days (if they ever did).

So, I took it upon myself to learn all I could about my family name and commit it to writing. I did not think in the process of doing so that I would discover a history largely forgotten, nor further still that substantially rewrites the generally accepted understanding of the Wilkinson, and wilk root variants, surname origin in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Nor would I have ever guessed that clues about our family name would be found in obscure passages of Orosius, Alfred the Great, The Domesday Book, and the works of nineteenth century scholars of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. But, having seen that is where it all leads, I am pleased that it has.

Hopefully, someday, my sons in particular (though I hope my daughter too will take pride in the surname of her birth), will read and learn about the rightful inheritance of their patrilineal surname. Though that may well be after I am gone. Such a contingency was a factor in my decision to leave this written legacy. Either way, the truth resides in the blood we share and, for my sons, it is literally written in the paternal only Y-DNA I bequeathed them, just as my father gave me, and his to him, and as every father has passed to every son, ever since our species has walked the earth.

"For the strength of the pack is the wolf,

And the strength of the wolf is the pack."

—Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

Introduction

The fetters will burst, and the wolf run free …

After the wolf do wild men follow …

There hangs a wolf by the western door,

And o’er it an eagle hovers …

Go forth like a wolf on thy way …

A gray wolf had they within their hall …

… it is well if a howling wolf

Thou hearest under the ash …

The word of the race of wolves …

Often a wolf in a son there is.

—The Poetic Edda, passim

Man må hyle med de ulve man er I blandt.

(One must howl with the wolves one is among.)

—Danish proverb

If you are reading this, and your last name begins with Wilk and you derived your surname from someone of English, Irish, or Scottish descent, you almost certainly have an inaccurate understanding of both the meaning and source of your surname. Whatever your genetic lineage may be, the linguistic taproot of the surname you carry, in my opinion at any rate, is most likely the ancient Slavonic word wilk, which means wolf, and came to the British Isles and Ireland among Frisians and Danes during both the Anglo-Saxon migration and Viking invasion eras. It is essentially a linguistic artifact that remained in use as a given name, long after its meaning was forgotten, from the assimilation of the Polabian Slavic tribe of the Wilte or Wylte/Weleti (or Wilzi) into the Danish and Frisian populations some fifteen hundred years ago.

The purpose of this work is to help you understand the true meaning of your surname, and the convincing evidence of how it came to be so. It is a terrific journey through the history and myth of the last millennium and a half of northern European history. I think you’ll be glad you came along on this ethnolinguistic voyage.

Presently, this book can be propositional only. Although conjectural, I believe there are valid, indeed compelling, reasons to suppose that the hypothesis I submit here is correct for most or possibly even all of the Wilk root surnames (i.e., Wilkens/Wilkes/Wilkies/Wilkins/Wilkersons/Wilkinsons/McQuilkins/MacUilcins, etc., and variants) whose genealogies trace to somewhere in the British Isles or Ireland, as well as Denmark, the Netherlands, and the region of Mecklenberg-Vorpommern in Germany.

In simplest terms my thesis is this: that the standard explanation that all forms of Wilk/Wilkin beginning surnames being variants of the diminutive for William or son of diminutive for William, and usually with the presumption that this commonly assumed etymology is Norman in origin, is simply not accurate. At the very least this standard etymology, which is seemingly ubiquitous, is woefully incomplete and, arguably, almost totally wrong for the vast majority of Wilk surname lineages.

The Norman origin may account for an exceedingly small subset of Wilkinson lines, particularly those that claim to trace from the family of Robert de Wintona. But even that claimed lineage, I would submit, has problems in its theory of origin for the name itself, which will be discussed below. The late Jean Manco points out:

[F]ew baronial male lines have lasted from Norman times down to the present day. Nearly a third failed to produce male heirs just in the century after the Norman conquest. Barons were expected to fight for the king, and might turn out for war with every able man of their family. Lineages could be lost on the battlefield … Norman male lines had shrunk to de Vere, Percy and Talbot by 1600 … Subsequent centuries saw more Norman male lineages disappear from the ranks of the aristocracy.¹

There are at least a half dozen distinct Y haplogroup lines identified in the relatively small Wilkinson FTDNA project (an E, a couple I, and