Colson
A surname usually understood as “son of Cole” or “son of Col,” with some early records also linking it to local place-name forms.
The #3,666 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 31,797 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The most common explanation is that Colson means “son of Cole,” with Cole/Col a short personal name used in medieval England. The first element may be from an Old English or Norse personal name, and some older writers also treated it as related to the Danish-influenced name Col in northern England. In some cases, spellings may also have been influenced by local-name surnames such as Colston or related forms.
History
The name is recorded in medieval England, including Yorkshire and other counties, and early spellings vary a good deal, such as Colson, Colleson, and Coulson. Nineteenth-century surname writers especially associated it with northern English and Danish-settled areas, while also noting that Coulson became the more common modern form in some places. It remains a relatively uncommon surname today.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some old surname dictionaries explicitly gloss Colson as “the son of Cole,” making it one of the more straightforward medieval patronymics.
From the historical record
“12.j0, was founder of the family. COLSON. The son of Cole, This was the name of one of the Danish invaders of Northumbria, where Coulson is still a com- mon family name. COLSTON. A parish in co. Notts. COLT. Ferguson thinks this a cor- ruption of tlje name Gold ; but it appears in the XIII. cent, in its present…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom