Hi
Here is what I found in soc.culture.scottish
Quote:
?        >Just as the home is a hame, an oak is an aik.

On another note, in "The Baronage of Angus and Mearns" there is the following curious account given, which seems to consider the names Aiken and Aikman to be of shared origin, neither of which has any relationship to the English name Atkins (except by virtue of vulgar confusion among the ignorant between it and the Scottish name Aiken). It reads:
AIKMAN of Cairnie
    "John Aikman, Esq., son of George Aikman of Loreburn, and grandson of John Aikman of Loreburn, Arbroath; got a charter under the great seal - Johanni Aikman, de Cairny, &c., near Arbroath, Angus, dated 15th July 1661. "Alysandre (Alexander) de Aikman was compelled to swear fealty to Edward I., A.D. 1296."
    "The traditional account of the origin of the name of Aikman is, that the officer who had command of the troops who beseiged the usurper Macbeath in Dunsinnane Castle, ordered all his soldiers to march to attack with branches of oak taken from "Birnam wood," near Dunkeld, and on that account got the name of Aikman. He is said to have been the progenitor of all the
Aikmans and Aikens in Scotland.[Baronage, P. 441.]
    "ARMS - Argent, out of a cloud at sinister side, a dexter hand holding a baton of oak, palewise, with a branch springing out of the top, proper, surmounted by a bend engrailed, gules. Crest - An oak tree, proper. Motto - Sun robore virtus (Valour under strength)."
AIKEN of Tarrie:
    "The Rev. Mr. Aiken or Aitken, purchased the estate of Tarrie, near Arbroath, about the end of the eighteenth century.
    "ARMS - Argent, a chevron, azure, between two cocks, in chief, and a round buckle, in base, gules, armed sable."

        Frankly I don't buy the story either, but it does show that in Scotland the name Aiken was believed by its bearers to have a meaning and origin completely independent of the name Atkins, despite the fact that it was often confused with the name and thus would frequently end up with the inflicted "t" thrust into it by the Anglophilics. Also not the blazon for the arms of Aikman contains the charge "at sinister side, a dexter hand holding a baton of oak, palewise", not unlike the "at sinister side, a dexter arm in armour embowed fesswise holding in its hand a battle-axe".
Both arms contain the charge of an arm or hand issuing from the sinister side of the shield, holding an object in their grasp, in the case of Aikman, the object is a baton of oak (a canting of the name Aikman), whilst in the case of Akins, the object is a battle-axe (of the type held by the royal Nordic lion in King Haakon's arms). Clever chaps, those heralds.
Alex