NOAKES. NOKES. "At the Oak." See the prefix Atte, Atten. Aten Oke and Atten Oke were the original forms. When the preposition began to be dropped from this class of surnames, the final N in this instance adhered to the designation of the tree, and we obtained the form Noake, since vulgarly pluralized into Noakcs. A-Noke was a transitional form. John A-Noke, who, with his constant antagonist, John Atte Style, was formerly as well known in our law courts as the redoubtable John Doe and Richard Eoeof later times, was notliiug more than plain John Noakes ; and " Jack Noakes and Tom Styles," the phrase by Avhich we designate the ignobile vulgus, are lineal descendants of those litigious ' parties.' The surname Hayuoke appears to be identical with A-Noke, while Boaks is probably a crasis of " By Oaks." See the 131-efix By. See also the names Nye and Nash. Dean Trench has some apiDropriate remarks on the absorption of the article into the noun in some cases, but he does not seem to have remarked the corresponding adhesion of a part or the whole of a preposition, as in the cases above cited, as well as in Attwood, Agate, Twells, &c., &c. See Study of Works, ed. 1852, p. 1 18. See also Gloss, to Chaucer, edit. 1825.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.