Family name origins & meanings
- English and Irish : (of Norman origin): habitational name from a metathesized form of Plouquenet in Ille-et-Villaine, Brittany, so named from Breton plou ‘parish’ (from Latin plebs ‘people’) + Guenec, the personal name (a diminutive of guen ‘white’) of a somewhat obscure saint. As an Irish name, it has been Gaelicized as Pluincéid.
- English and Irish : alternatively, it may be a metonymic occupational name for a maker or seller of blankets, from Middle English blaunket (Anglo-Norman French blancquet, a diminutive of blanc ‘white’), but replacement of b by p is not usual in English.