It's most likely a variation of kirkin-head. Kirk was a Scottish word for church. This means that the earliest appearances of jerkinhead roofs may have been on churches, and the word means “church head,” or “church roof.” This suggests that the origins of the jerkinhead roof are actually pretty old.

Where did the name Jerkinhead come from?

While “head” refers to the top, “jerkin” is a reference to a 16th-century medieval sleeveless jacket that was worn as an outer garment by men. The cut-off sleeve concept was then transposed to the gables being cut off, resulting in the “jerkinhead” term.

What is a Jerkinhead roof?

The jerkinhead roof style combines the best features of the gable roof, a simple two plane roof with a central ridge, and the hipped roof, a roof with four sloping sides and a short center ridge, by including only a short hip at the very end of each ridge.