On the origins of the Hooke name:

The name Hook has several beginnings. The name is an old name from England. Spelled Hoke originally. The name is pronounced like Luke with an H-uke. Beauwolf- an ancient English poet, has a poem about the dau. of Hooke crying because of the death of her sons. In that poem, I am told the Hook family is refered to as Hockings(pronounced like Luke again with an ings on the end (Huke-ings).

But also their is a place called Hook because of a bend in the river that looks like a Hook. Wheather this caused some occupants of that area to use the name Hook I do not know. But their are places in England called Hook/Hooke which is named after the family of Hooke. The English Hooke family came from the Normans, and were among the first settlers of England. So likely the places came from the family name and not the family name from the places.

One English coat of arms for the Hooke family uses the motto: "Be what you seem to be."
Robert

Originally posted at Genealogy.com by Robert Berenger.  I thought everyone might find this of interest.

This is believed to be the Coat of Arms that belongs to the Bramshott line of the Hooke family in England.  Although we tend to think of a Coat of Arms as belonging to the family, in fact it would have belonged to an individual and been registered to his name.  During the middle ages representatives of the King would would come to each area to make sure that these were not be used by the wrong people.   These became known as the "Visitations". Fraudulent use of another persons Coat would have been a crime -- think  of it as the earliest form of identity theft. 

Fathers could pass their armorial bearings to their sons upon their death and when families merged their heraldric symbols often were merged into a new unified Coat of Arms.  Sometimes a son would have a Coat of Arms that was very similar to his fathers so this can sometimes be used as an indicator of relatedness.  (Apparently though, this cannot be relied upon with 100% certainty when tracing your lineage.)

I have information from these Visitations that I purchased from the registry in England and will pass this on as time permits.  There were a number of different armorial bearings that belonged to Hooke families living in England.   I only have their descriptions at this time, but some are widely available on the internet (like this one). 

This is thought to be one of the oldest known Hooke Coat of Arms.

I hope to get the pedigrees that belonged to each of these families soon and eventually post the Coat of Arms onto the photo section for the individual who would have owned them.