Rendon
A surname that most likely comes from a place-name, probably meaning someone from or near a roe-deer hill or related hill settlement.
The #1,778 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 15,328 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The strongest clue from the older surname literature is that Rendon is treated as a place-based name, with forms such as Renedon and Reyndon. Harrison suggests an Old English place-name element like rdn/ra, meaning a roe-deer, combined with dūn, meaning a hill, so the original sense would be something like “roe-deer hill.” The evidence is not fully secure, and the name may reflect a variant or misreading of related names such as Renton.
History
The historical discussion is brief and uncertain, and the name appears mainly in comparisons with similar English and Scottish place-names rather than as a well-attested standalone surname entry. The form may have arisen as a regional spelling variant of a locational surname and later stabilized in family use. In modern times Rendon is especially well established in the United States, likely through later migration and surname transmission rather than from a single obvious medieval center.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
An older surname source uses Rendon as evidence that some places written as Renton may originally have reflected an earlier form meaning “roe-deer hill.”
From the historical record
“estate, etc.] 3 Rendon (? where); The place-names Renedon and Reyndon iound in the Hun- dred-Rolls, and the occurrence of Randiin (app. ' Ra's Hill ' — O.E. rdn, genit. of rd, a roe + diin, a hill) in gth-cent. Southern charters, show that in some cases 'Renton'”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)