1) A word found in Middle English which referred to ‘an imaginary country of luxury and idleness’ (OED).
It occurs as a place-name and surname in many parts of England and examples are found over a wide area from the twelfth century, before its first recorded use in literature. Although it has parallels in other European languages the etymology remains obscure but a comparison can be made between the localities of Cockan in Clayton near Bradford and Cocken in the Lancashire parish of Dalton. Ekwall’s comment on this name is that it was probably ‘jocular’ since it referred to land that had been cleared by the monks of Furness Abbey, back-breaking toil at the best. That may apply also to the Clayton name since there is mention in an undated thirteenth-century charter of ‘12 bovates of land in a new assart of Cockan de nova captura’
that is a piece of land newly won from the waste.