Alton
A surname most often taken from places called Alton, especially English place-names meaning “old town” or “settlement on the hill.”
The #7,305 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 67,633 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Alton is usually a locational surname, taken from one of several English places named Alton. The place-name is commonly explained from Old English elements meaning either “old town” or “old settlement,” though some local names may also have been influenced by words for a hill or ridge. In surname use, it simply marked someone as being “of Alton.”
History
The name appears in medieval English records in several counties, which fits a surname formed independently from more than one place called Alton. Lower and Barber both treat it as an English locative surname, and the modern surname remains most familiar in Britain and in diaspora communities. Because multiple villages and towns share the name, not every Alton family has the same exact geographical origin.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
There are several English places called Alton, so the surname can have more than one independent origin.
From the historical record
“Lincoln, and Norfolk. ALTON. A town in Hampshire, and parishes or places in cos. Wilts, Dorset, Stafford, &c. ALUM. ALLUM. See Hallam. ALVERD. This name Is sometimes written Alured, i.e., Ahred or Alfred, but it may occasionally' be a corruption of Al- ford. Another variation is Alvert.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom