This surname ALBROOKE was a locational name 'of Holbrook' a parish in County Suffolk, six miles from Ipswich, and a parish in County Derby. The name was originally derived from the Old English word HOLBROC, literally meaning the dweller by the sunken stream. Local names usually denoted where a man held his land and indicated where he actually lived. Early records of the name mention William de Allebrok, 1273, County Suffolk. William Hollbroke of Yorkshire, was listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of 1379. In 1635, Thomas Holbrooke of Broudway, aged 34, with his wife, two sons and a daughter embarked for New England. This name was first taken to America by the brothers Thomas and John Holbrook who emigrated to Massachusetts in the 17th century; their line can be traced back to Dundry, Somerset in the first half of the sixteenth century. Other English bearers of the name who started early lines of descent in the New World are Joseph Houlbrook of Warrington, County Lancashire, who emigrated to Maryland as an indentured servant in the late seventeenth century. Randolph Holbrook, who was in Virginia in the 1720's but later returned to Nantwich, Cheshire, and the Reverend John Holbrook, who emigrated from Handbury, Staffordshire, to New Jersey about 1723. The spelling Haulbrook originated in Georgia in the 1870's, reflecting the Southern American pronunciation of the name. Several early American bearers of the name in the 1880 census, give their place of birth as Oldenburg, or Hanover, Germany.

Surnames before the Norman Conquest of 1066 were rare in England having been brought by the Normans when William the Conqueror invaded the shores. The practice spread to Scotland and Ireland by the 12th century, and in Wales they appeared as late as the 16th century. Most surnames can be traced to one of four sources, locational, from the occupation of the original bearer, nicknames or simply font names based on the first name of the parent being given as the second name to their child.