2020-05-19 The Meaning of the Name Koet

the name's game

Mayflower Pilgrim

Mayflower Pilgrim Moses Fletcher is unique among Mayflower Pilgrims; for centuries, Moses Fletcher did not have any descendants in America, but in Leiden instead. While he had several children who married and then had children of their own, all known living descendants are descendants of Thomas Koet and Moses' daughter Priscilla Fletcher. What's more, all Dutch persons with the surname Koet inherit their name from Thomas Koet; there is no other Dutch Koet family. Thus, the Koet family tree is central to research into Fletcher's descendants - but what does the name mean?

With few exceptions, the only way to be sure about a surname's origin is to do genealogical research.

Leienaars

Koet is a Leiden name, a surname that occurs in and around Leiden, and few years ago, there appeared a book about just that subject. Leienaars (ISBN 978 94 6319 059 6) by Piet van Sterkenburg, subtitle Leidse achternamen en Leidenaars van naam (Leiden surnamens and Leidenaars of name), was published in 2017.
The review of this book linked below already noted that Leiden is an interesting and challenging place to research name origins for because of the influx of immigrants throughout the centuries. Although the explanation for some surnames may seem obvious, the seemingly obvious explanation need not be the right one. I repeat here what I stated in that review, and the Local Names article; with few exceptions, the only way to be sure about a surname's origin is to do genealogical research. The author of Leienaars has not done any such research, and does not cite third-party research either.

The Leienaars entry for the surname Koet is actually an entry for the surnames Koet, Koot Koete & Koots:

Koet;Koot;Koote;Koots Bijnaam voor iemand die op koeten joeg of die er op een of ander manier op leek, naar koet, de watervogel. De naam Koet kwam bij de volkstelling van 1947 211 voor in Nederland. Van dat aantal zijn er 151 opgetekend in the province Zuid-Holland en in die provincie komt de naam het meest voor in Leiden, te weten: 100.

A picture of a coot completes the entry. The text of the entry, translated into English:

Koet;Koot;Koote;Koots Nickname for someone who hunted coot or in one way or another looked like one, after coot, the water bird. The name Koet occured 211 times in the 1947 census. Of those, 151 were noted in the province of South-Holland, and within the province the name occured most often in Leiden, to wit: 100 times.

The name Koet is grouped together with three other names, and the explanation for all four is that the name derives from coot.
This may seem a reasonable hypothesis in the absence of genealogical research, but someone who catches coot is known as a kooiker - and Kooyker is the name of a well-known bookstore in the centre of Leiden. Somehow Kooijker does not appear in Leienaars, but there is an entry for Kooijman, Kooijmans Kooiman, Kooimans, Kooyman, Cooiman & Cooijmans, which explains that it is the name of someone who breeds or catches ducks.

The real problem with this explanation for the surname Koet, and other entries in Leienaars is that they are just guesses. Those guesses may serve as a first hypothesis, but should not be misunderstood as established explanations.

Huizinga

Twenty years ago, you would have looked in Huizinga's Complete Lijst van Namen (Huizinga's Complete List of Names), a book originally published in 1955, and republished in 1998 (ISBN 90-5121-782-X). An alphabetical index refers to section 1a.
Section 1a is titled Voornamen als geslachtsnaam (Given names as Surname). It starts with a few paragraphs of general remarks about this type of surname, and then simply presents a lists of names, about eight pages long; Koet occurs between Koert en Kokke.

So, Huizinga claims that the surname Koet is a patronymic, derived from the given name Koet. Koet does occur as given name, so the assumption that the surname Koet derives from that given name is an understandable assumption, but that is all it is: an assumption. Huizinga presents no evidence for this categorisation of the surname Koet.

The evidence needed is a Dutch family tree in which the given name Koet becomes the petrified patronymic Koet. After about a dozen years of researching the surname Koet, I believe that no such tree exists.

Database of Surnames in the Netherlands

Nowadays, most Dutch genealogists would start by consulting the Database of Surnames in the Netherlands (formerly known as the Dutch Family Names Bank). The Database of Surnames in the Netherlands was originally created by the Meertens Instituut, an institue that researches Dutch language and culture, and is now hosted by the Central Bureau of Genealogy.

A nice feature of this database is that it can show the distribution of a surname, based on data from 2007.

Database of Surnames in the Netherlands: distribution of Koet surname in 2007

The Local Names article from 2017 already said a few things about the Koet and its entry in the Dutch Family Names Bank. The analyse en verklaring (analysis and explanation) page for Koet seems unchanged. It still lists Koet as a variation of names like Koot and Koets, and still claims that Koet is a patronymic. That is incorrect.

Database of Surnames in the Netherlands: explanation of surname Koet

The documentatie (documentation) page now contains a large quote from Local Names:

Koet is a Leiden name. The book Leienaars suggests that Koet is one particular spelling variation of a name which includes the other spelling variations Koot, Koote and Koets. Koet is Dutch for coot, and the explanation the book gives that an ancestor either hunted for or looked like a coot.
The Dutch Family Names Bank, maintained by the Meertens Institute, claims that Koet is patronymic, a claim they probably base on Huizinga's Complete Lijst van Namen (Huizinga's Complete List of Names), which lists Koet as a patronymic. Neither work provides a source for their explanation, and that is a strong hint that the authors of both works have presented no more than their best guess.

I have done actual resarch, and do not believe that Koet is one of several spelling variations that includes Koot or Koets, or a patronymic. In fact, I am pretty sure that everyone named Koet is an official descendant of Thomas Koet, also known as Thomas Coit, an immigrant from Canterbury in England, who came to Leiden in the early 17th century, and married here twice, in 1623 and 1626.
The name Coit may very well be a spelling variation of coot; that would certainly explain the practically immediate (genealogically speaking) spelling change to Koet, a translation that retains both pronunciation and meaning, but you'd have to do research in England to make sure.

Database of Surnames in the Netherlands: documentation for the surname Koet

There is a reactie (reaction) below the quote which calls Huizinga's Complete Lijst van Namen een pretentieuze heruitgave uit 1998 van een nonsens-boek uit 1955 (a pretentious reissue from 1998 of a nonsense-book from 1955), and the Meertens institute passé. Those are harsh words, and the statement about the Meertens institute is simply not true. The Meertens institute is not passé at all. Au contraire, the Meertens institute is still around, and their work remains of interest to genealogists.

The page for Koet isn't the only page that cites the Local Names article, quotes from that article now appear on the Hu and de Hen pages as well.

Corpus of First Names in the Netherlands

The Meertens Institute has not only created a database of surnames, they've also created a database of given names. The Meertens Institute's (Corpus of First Names in the Netherlands) contains 608.289 entries. The entry for Koet has two lines of text:

Corpus of First Names in the Netherlands: Koet

Koet kwam in 2014 niet als naam voor, maar is in Nederland eerder door zowel mannen als vrouwen gedragen. Te weinig gegevens voor het tonen van populariteit.

which translates to:

The name Koet did not occur in 2014, but has been carried in the Netherlands by men as well as women. Not enough data to display popularity.

The button verklaring (explanation) is greyed out; the given name Koet occurs in this database without an explanation.

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland

Priscilla Fletcher married Thomas Coit, who was soon known as Thomas Koet. The surname Coit could be spelling variation of coot, but you don't know that until you research that name in England, and such research starts by consulting an English surname dictionary.

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (ISBN 978 0 19 967776 4) does not have an entry for Koet, but does have an entry for Coit:

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland: Coit

The entry for Coit tells us that there were 19 people bearing that name in 1881, and that there are 54 people bearing that name today. A small map shows the distribution of the name in 1881.
There is no explanation for the name Coit. There is a link to the name Coyte instead.

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland: Coyte

The entry for Coyte does not only tell us that there were 57 people bearing that name in 1881, and that there are 156 people bearing that name today, it also gives an explanation for the name, complete with references.

Norman, English: nickname from Anglo-Norman French coyte , coite ‘discus, flat stone’, hence probably used for an enthusiastic or successful quoits player.

Further information

compare Coyter, or caster of a Coyte , about 1440 in Promptorium Parvulorum, and also Alice Coyteman, 1327 in Subsidy Rolls (Suffolk); John Coiter, 1327 in Subsidy Rolls (Sussex).

Early bearers

Walter le Coyt, 1275 in Hundred Rolls (Oxon); John Coyt, 1327 in Subsidy Rolls (Suffolk); William Coyte, 1681 in The Essex Review 62.

Fletcher

By the way, the dictionary's explanation for the surname Fletcher is: English: occupational name from Middle English fleccher , Old French flechier , flecher ‘fletcher’, for someone who made or sold arrows for bows..

summary

The Dutch surname Koet isn't a petrified patronymic. The Dutch surname Koet does not derived from coot, the water bird. The Dutch surname Koet is a Dutchified variant of the English surname Coit.

According to the The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, the surname Coit is a variation of the surname Coyte, which is a nickname from Anglo-Norman French, meaning discuss or flat stone, so probably used for an enthusiastic or successful quoits player.

I'd love to hear from anyone researching the surname Coit or Coyte.