Lake Family History

English (mainly West Country): topographic name usually for someone who lived by a streamlet (Middle English lak(e) Old English lacu) or who lived at or came from any of the places so named such as Lack in Church Stoke (Shropshire) and Lake in Wilsford near Amesbury (Wiltshire). Lake is a common minor placename in Devon.

English: occasionally perhaps a topographic name for someone who lived by a lake or pool (Middle English Old French lake), though it is uncertain that this word was current in ordinary vocabulary during the main period of surname formation (1250–1400).

North German and Dutch: habitational name from any of several places in Westphalia and Lower Saxony so named, or a topographic name from Middle Low German, Middle Dutch lake ‘swamp, swampy meadow’ (Middle Dutch also ‘border water’).

Americanized form (translation into English) of Finnish Järvinen, an ornamental name based on järvi ‘lake’ (see Jarvinen).