Meaning & History
From an English surname derived from the name of the village Chideock in Dorset (recorded in the Domesday Book as Cidihoc), which is of unknown meaning. (It has been suggested that the suffix hoc referred to Hock, a festival held on the second Tuesday after Easter to commemorate the massacre of the Danes at the time of King Æthelred the Unready.) Chidiock Tichborne (1558-1586) was an English poet who was executed for his participation in the failed Babington Plot.