Recorded in various spelling forms including Rastrick, Raistrick, and the dialectals Restrick, Rostrick and Rustrick, this is an English locational surname. It originates from the village of Rastrick, a former Viking settlement between the towns of Huddersfield and Brighouse in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Taken from the pre 7th century Norse word "hreysi" meaning burial ground, and the "wic" a dairy farm, even today in the 20th century the village still retains its distinctive and easily visible burial mound, behind the cricket ground. Location names were usually given to former inhabitants who moved to another area, the further they moved, generally the more corrupted the spelling. Early examples of recordings taken from the surviving church registers of Yorkshire include Robert Rastrick of Guiseley on July 18th 1619, Benjamin Rostrick of Keighley on September 5th 1819, and Sarah Rustrick who married who married Antony Clark at Bradford on September 20th 1830. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Katerina Rastrike. This was dated 1379, in the Poll Tax records of the county of Yorkshire, during the reign of King Richard 11nd of England, 1378 - 1399. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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