La Tour
A French surname meaning “the tower,” usually from a place name or a house or landmark near a tower.
The #9,754 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 92,912 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Latour is a French surname built from la tour, meaning “the tower.” In many cases it was originally a locational name for someone who lived by, or came from, a place called La Tour, or from a house or estate marked by a tower. The deeper root is Latin turris, “tower.”
History
The name is well established in French-speaking areas and also appears in Anglophone records as a French immigrant or French-influenced surname. Historical surname dictionaries regularly treat it as a straightforward French locational name, and related forms such as Latteur and Latry appear in older listings. In some families, the surname may have been adopted from a specific place-name rather than from a descriptive nickname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Because la tour is a very transparent phrase in French, the surname is one of the easiest to recognize visually once you know the language.
From the historical record
“armett. Fr. Lermytte ; a p.n. arter. From Latour; a loc. n., 1 France. Fr. Latour ; FI. Latteur ; p.n. Le Tour, Hugt. n., Lond. 1618”
— British Family Names: their origin and meaning (2nd ed.)