Culbertson
A Scottish and northern English patronymic surname meaning “son of Culbert,” from an old personal name related to Colbert.
The #3,492 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 30,151 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Culbertson is a patronymic surname built from the personal name Culbert plus the element "son," meaning “son of Culbert.” Culbert is generally understood as a regional spelling variant of Colbert, a medieval given name that likely developed from old Germanic name-elements and was reshaped in Britain by local pronunciation and spelling habits. The name’s exact deepest origin is not always explained the same way in the literature, but the surname clearly functions as a hereditary family name formed from an ancestral forename.
History
The surname is most at home in Scotland and northern England, where patronymic names ending in -son became common and then hereditary. It later spread to North America through British and Irish migration, and today it is found especially in the United States and Canada. Because the underlying given name became uncommon, the surname often survived long after the personal name itself disappeared.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Culbertson is one of several surnames whose spelling preserves an old personal name that has largely vanished from everyday use.