At number 13 in our list of the most common Cornish surnames in 1861 we meet a distinctively Cornish name. While the surnames covered so far were also found in England, almost two thirds (61%) of all Pascoes in 1881 were living in Cornwall. The name was a Cornish variant of Middle English and Norman-French Pascal, a nickname for someone born at Easter but also the name of a ninth century pope and saint.
This surname in Cornwall was closely associated with Cornish-speaking mid and west Cornwall in the early 1500s, although an occasional presence east of the Camel-Fowey linguistic boundary must either indicate earlier migration from the west or a separate and parallel development of the name Pascal in the east.
The heartland of Pascoes in the seventeenth century had become the district between Breage in the west and Roseland in the east. This was still being echoed in 1861, by which time there had been an expected drift of the surname northwards from its heartland towards to the towns (and jobs) of Camborne and Truro.
Cornish studies resources 