As a Chinese surname, Kook approximates the Cantonese pronunciations of various distinct surnames, listed below by their spelling in Hanyu Pinyin (which reflects the Standard Mandarin pronunciation): The Dutch surname Kook originated both as an occupational surname for a baker of cakes (koekenbakker) or a cook (kok), and as a variant spelling of the French surname Cocq ("rooster").
[3] Kook is also a Jewish surname, a variant spelling of Kuk or Cook.
[4][5] As a Korean surname, Kook is a customary spelling of the three surnames spelled Guk in the Revised Romanization of Korean: Gong Guk (鞠; 공 국; "to bow"), Nara Guk (國; 나라 국; "country"), and Gukhwa Guk (菊; 국화 국; "chrysanthemum flower").
[7] The 2010 United States Census found 522 people with the surname Kook, making it the 41,657th-most-common name in the country.
In both censuses, more than half of people with the surname Kook identified as non-Hispanic white, and about four-tenths as non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islander.