Menhinick Family History

Probably from Mellionec farm in Colan (Cornwall), recorded as Melihonec in the early 13th century and Mellyonek in 150. The place-name derives from an adjectival form of Middle Cornish melhyonen ‘clover plant’. A surname Melyonek derived from this place occurs in the 14th to 16th centuries.

The earliest known bearer of the surname Menhinick, John Menhenek in 1522 (Helland), was also called John Melyonek. The surname spread in the Bodmin area in the later 16th and the 17th centuries.

The variant Menhinett is first found in 1641 (Bodmin). The parish of Menheniot and the farm of Menheniot in Saint Stephen by Launceston (of different derivation from one another) could theoretically have produced a surname Menhenek, but neither of those seems to have given rise to an inherited surname.

Surnames in this group were occasionally confused with ones of the shape Menwenick (from a farm of that name in Trewen), but the two groups usually remained distinct.