Where the Brooks name comes from

Brooks is a stream, and the medieval spellings say so plainly. The Old English broc gives the word, and the forms the surname grew out of were Ate-Broc and Atte-Broc, at the brook, which is where the family lived. The name crossed to North America from England in the middle of the 17th century, and it is on record in Ireland from the 1600s. There is also a Brooks among English-speaking Ashkenazi Jews that comes from the Hebrew given name Boruch, blessed, and has nothing to do with running water.