Recorded in may forms including Schule, Schulke, Schuelcke, Schulken, Schulkens, Schulkin, Schulkins, Schuler, Schuller, and others, this is a German surname. In origin it is occupational for a school master, or according to some dictionaries, a school pupil. If this is the case it must sorely have been a nickname either for a perpetual student, or perahps somebody who had not grown up! Medieval nicknames by modern standards were often extremely robust to the point where it is surprising that the nameholder did not object. Perhaps they did as many have become extinct, although the probable reason was that meanings may well have been different from the interpretations put upon them in later centuries. Occupational surnames did not usually become hereditary unless a son followed his father into the same line of business. However in this case a number of the spellings are patronymics which clearly mean "The son of the School master". Early examples of the surname recordings taken from authentic rolls and charters of the late medieval period include: Bertrand Schule of Eblingen in 1223, Ditrich Schuler of Basel, Switzerland, in 1270, Anna Schuelkins who married Johannes Herzel at Necharkreis, Wuertt, on November 26th 1695, and Maria Schuelcke, who married Conradus van der Busch, probably a Dutchman, at Orsbeck, Rheinland, on September 23rd 1748.

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