The Quick Surname

The Quick Surname

The one-hundred percent true origin of the Quick surname is difficult to ascertain and currently subject to speculation. The modern word Quick literally translated in old Dutch means ”quick or lively”. In Holland today the word Quick seems to be associated with amateur football clubs such as: H.V. & C.V. Quick from Den Haar founded in 1896, The Quick Boys from Katwijk founded in 1920, Quick Nijmegen founded in 1888, Be Quick from Groningen founded in 1887, and Quick Football shoes in 1905.[1] The club names derive more from metaphors for sportive qualities than for a place-name.[2] It also could be from Kwik or Quick, Dutch for mercury or quicksilver and used to describe a person with a mercurial temperament.[3]

In Naarden we have a few records of the Quick surname spelled; Quik, Quick, and Quijck as far back as 1548,[4] with most of the research published in The Quick Family in America by Arthur C. Quick in 1942. For a place name involving the word Quick, we have Quick, England in Yorkshire on the River Tame, 12 miles west of Manchester. In Naarden, there is an area just outside of the south battery, along the Amersfoortsestraatweg, to the Jan Tabak Hotel that was once called “The Kweek”.[4][5] Kweek literally means, “to cultivate or to plant” in Dutch. The area had various names from the mid-18th century; such as “kwekerij or kwecker”.[6] There was a large house on the edge of the area called “Kweeklust or Kwaacklust” that could be seen from the Jan Tabak house up to 1844.[7] In a Dutch dictionary written in 1766 The word “Queeken” means; to cherish, to nourish, to plant, to cultivate. The same Dictionary has “Quik” as an adjective meaning, lively.[8] The Dutch usually dropped the usage of “QU” in later years with ”KW”[9] so that could easily explain the change in spelling. This is a very compelling possible origin of the surname Quick that identifies a place name in Naarden that that has a similar root-word to the American Quick’s. We also have the city of Cuijk that was the seat of the Van Cuyck family.[10]

The Kweek south of Naarden

Sources 

[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.V. C.V._Quick, Quick_Boys, Quick_1888, Be_Quick_1887, Quick_(sportswear)

[2] Siegfried Gehrmann, Football and regional identity in Europe (Sport--Kultur, Veranderung), (Lit Verlag, 1997)

[3] Yvette Hoitink Facebook conversation on Dutch Genealogy Page October 10th 2019

pg. 150, Other names were metaphors for sportive qualities: Volharding (perseverance), Velocitas (speed), Excelsior (superiority), NOAD (Never Stop, Always Go On), and Be Quick

[4] Lucas de Gooijer, Koptienden Naarden (Land tax records) www.blogger.com/profile /07424721768216487274 1548, Gerrit Claesz Quijck

[5] Bas de Groot, The Diary of Albertus Perk and the Siege of Naarden: 1813-1814 (Translate, June 2014) http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/eyewitness/c_Perk.html , April 2nd 1814, After this we went to look at a few of the batteries near the Kweek, passing close by the house of Jan Tabak, and marched through Old Bussum

[6] G Fuldauer De Navorscher: Een middel tot gedachtenwisseling en letterkundig verkeer tuschen allen, die iets weten, iets te vragen hebben of iets kunnen oplossen (JF Thieme, Nijmegen, 1912) Vol 40 pg. 655, Kweek (polder bij Naarden)

[7] S.P. Jeanne Foreman, Het boomkwekersgeslacht Jurrissen in Naarden, (De Omroeper, Apr 1994, Jaargang 7, Nr.

2) pgs. 44-5. Tegen het laatste kwart van de achttiende eeuw bezat een zekere Jacob Bolten een boomkwekerij aan de Amersfoortsestraatweg genaamd 'Kweeklust'

Dog’s Grass, Quick-Grass, Couch Grass Kweeken, b. w. van planten, to cultivate, nurse, nuture…Kweekerij, vr.

[8] William Sewell, A Compleat Dictionary English and Dutch, to which is Added a Grammar, for Both Languages, (Kornelis de Veer, Amsterdam, 1766) Vol. 1 by, pgs. 657-58, Queeken, To Cherish, nourish, plant cultivate. Boomen queeken, to cultivate trees. Quik, levendig, Quick, lively

[9] Joshua A. Fishman, Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems (Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, Jan 1, 1977) pg. 181 Mediaeval Dutch Spelling…phoneme combination kw was often spelled qu

[10] Jason Quick, Chapter on Van Cuyck of Cuijk, Culemborg and Utrecht