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* As a German surname, variant of Walke. * As an English surname, from the noun and verb walk.

From Middle English walk, walke, walken, walkyn, wolken (“to roll, toss, or turn; to walk; to move; to be living; to beat or full; to perform”), a conflation of Old English wealcan (“to move around; to revolve; to roll; to fluctuate; to discuss”) (ġewealcan (“to go, traverse; to roll”)) and Old English wealcian (“to curl, roll up, twist; to wrinkle”); both from Proto-West Germanic *walkan, from Proto-Germanic *walkaną (“to roll, toss, turn, wind; to walk, wander, wend; to full, trample”), *walkōną (“to roll about; to full”), from Proto-Indo-European *walg- (“to twist, turn, move”). Cognates Cognate with Bavarian woikn (“to full, tan; to knead dough; to roll out dough”), Cimbrian balchan (“to beat, hit, strike”), Dutch zwalken (“to walk around”), German walken (“to full, tan, walk; to knead; to beat up”), Danish valke (“to full, walk, waulk”), Faroese válka (“make dirty; stir up dirt”), Swedish valka (“to full cloth, to waulk”); also Latin valgus (“bent out; bandy, bow-legged”). More at vagrant and whelk. Doublet of waulk.

From Middle English walc, walk, walke, from Old English *wealc (as in Old English wealcspinl) and ġewealc (“rolling, turning; motion, surging”), from Proto-Germanic *walką. Cognate with Icelandic volk (“difficulty, hardship, trouble”).