The ending in _cock_. This ending is not one that enters into the Teutonic system, unless so far as it may turn out to be a corruption of something else. I have not met with it earlier than A.D. 1400, nor do I know of anything to make me think that it is much older. There has been at different times a good deal of discussion as to its origin in _Notes and Queries_ and elsewhere. Mr. Lower has supposed it to be a diminutive, for which I do not think that any etymological sanction can be found, unless indeed we can suppose it to be a corruption of the diminutive _eck_ or _ock_ before referred to, which seems not impossible. But on the whole I am disposed to agree with the suggestion of a writer in _Notes and Queries_ that _cock_ is a corruption of _cot_,--not, however, in the sense which I suppose him to entertain, of _cot_ as a local word, but of _cot_ as an ancient ending, the High German form of _gaud_ or _got_, signifying, as supposed, "Goth." So far as the phonetic relationship between the two words _cock_ and _cot_ is concerned, we have an instance, among others, in our word _apricot_, which was originally _apricock_. I am influenced very much in coming to the above conclusion by finding _coq_ as a not unfrequent ending in French names, as in _Balcoq_ and _Billecoq_, also in _Aucoq_, _Lecoq_, _Videcocq_, _Vilcocq_, which latter seem to be names corresponding with our _Alcock_, _Laycock_, _Woodcock_, and _Willcock_. They might all be formed on Teutonic stems, if we suppose _Lecoq_ and _Laycock_ to have lost a _d_, like _Lewis_ and _Lucas_, from _leod_, people. Now, that the ending _gaud_, with its alternative forms _got_, _caud_, _cot_, is present in French names as well as in English will be clearly seen from the following. From the Old German Faregaud we have _Faragut_, and the French have _Farcot_; from the O.G. Benigaud they have _Penicaud_, and we have _Pennycad_; from the O.G. Ermingaud they have _Armingaud_, and from Megingaud they have _Maingot_; from the O.G. Aringaud we have _Heringaud_, from Wulfegaud we have _Woolcot_, from Adogoto we have _Addicott_, and from Madalgaud we have _Medlicott_. I am also disposed on the same principle to take _Northcott_, notwithstanding its local appearance, to represent the O.G. name Nordgaud, and in this case we have also the name _Norcock_ to compare.