Tour Scotland photograph of the George Wilkie gravestone in Gask Parish Churchyard cemetery, Perthshire, Scotland. Millwright in Gask, who died 26th of April, 1869, aged 59. This surname is a distinctively Scottish double diminutive of the male given name William, itself coming from " Wilhelm ", the Norman form of an Old French personal name composed of the Germanic elements " wil ", will, desire, and " helm ", helmet, protection. Introduced into England by the Normans at the time of the Conquest, William soon became the most popular given name in England, mainly, no doubt in honour of the Conqueror himself. It subsequently generated a wide variety of diminutive and pet forms including: Will, Wilkin, Wilkes, Willet and Willmot. A family of the surname Wilkie was seated at Rathobyres in Midlothian from the beginning of the 14th Century. One William Wilkie was a member of an Assize in Edinburgh in 1529, and Catherine Wilkie was recorded in Dysart, Fifeshire in 1541. James Wilkie was a tenant of Newbattle Abbey in the Borders in 1563, and in 1591 the accounts of the ballies of the burgh of Lanark were rendered to the Exchequer by William Wilkie, burgess there at that time. Sir David Wilkie, born 1785, died 1841, was appointed painter in ordinary in 1830, retaining the office under William 1V and Victoria. A Coat of Arms granted to the Wilkie family is a silver shield, with a fess wreathed azure and red, between a crescent in chief and a cinquefoil in base of the second. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of David Wilkie, who witnessed a notorial instrument, which was dated 1495, in Records of Pitcairn, Fifeshire, during the reign of King James 1V of Scotland, , born 1488, died 1513. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax.
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