Recorded in several spellings as shown below, this very interesting surname is English. It is also locational from a place called Pollicatt in the county of Buckinghamshire. This was first recorded as Policote in the famous Domesday Book of 1086, and as Policota in the Pipe Rolls of the county for the year 1130. The translation is open to conjecture, but the most credible explanation is "The pole by the cottage", the pole being a prominent boundary marker, or possibly the centre pointof a local region where the moot court was held. Another feasible explanation is that "Pol" is a tribal or personal name of unknown meaning, which also appears to occurs in place names such as Polesworth or Polesden. Locational surnames are usually "from" names. During the Middle Ages, migration for job-seeking became more common, and people were given the name of their former village as a means of identification. This often resulted in a wide dispersal of the name and variations in the spelling. The surname is recorded as Pollicott, Pollicote, Polycott, Polycote, Poleykett, Pollicatt and others. Random examples of recordings of the surname from early church registers include: the christening of John, the son of Thomas Pollicott, on February 2nd 1556, at Stone in Buckinghamshire; the christening of Katherin, thedaughter of Thomas Policot, at St. Mary's Aylesbury, on September 15th 1566; and the marriage of Francis Pollicote and Jeane Cleare on April 28th 1590, at St. Margaret's, Westminster. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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