From Family Name History, courtesy of James A. Lackey, Sr. of Kent, Washington:

"When found in England the surname Leckey or Lecky, Leckie and Leakey is ultimately of Scottish origin. The name is of local origin, that is, it belongs in the category of surnames derived from the place where the initial bearer once lived or held land. In this instance, the name indicates 'one who came from Leckey.'

"The name of a baronry in the parish of Gargunnock in Sterlingshire. In Scotland this name is especially found in the shires of Dumbarton and Stirling.  Refractory stones called “lecks,” useful in forging iron or steel, are found in Sterlingshire. Workmen in that land of lecks came to be called Leckies. They might have forged weapons for William Wallace but they had no clan tartan; they were artisans or tradesmen, not land owners. . . . and the Leckies of Antrim and Carlow in Ireland are of Scottish descent, having been brought here during the Plantation period of the seventeenth century."

"King James I had forced many Scottish tradesmen or artisans to leave their homes in Scotland and relocate to Ireland in the period around 1620. King James wanted the Protestant Scots to displace the Catholic Irish in the Ulster region, but the means of production were still controlled by the Anglicans of England, thus the Ulster Plantation."