Tart
A surname usually explained as a shortened or altered form of Tarrant, from a place name in Dorset.
The #9,511 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 90,356 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is generally treated as a reduced or altered form of Tarrant, the name of several places in Dorset, itself linked to the River Tarrant. The place-name element is typically explained as a river name of older origin, though the deeper root is not certain. Some nineteenth-century writers also treated Tart as a corruption of Tarratt/Tarrant.
History
The surname appears in English records in forms that suggest spelling variation and local pronunciation rather than a separate independent root. It is especially associated in older onomastic works with Dorset place-names. The similarity to the ordinary English word tart is accidental.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname dictionaries even note Tart alongside other surnames that look like common words, but it belongs to the long pattern of English locational names that got shortened over time.
From the historical record
“Thierry, derived from Theodoric. TART. A corruption of the surname Tarratt, for Tarrant ; 112 LUDUS PATRON YMICUS. from Tarrant, name of several parishes in co. Dorset, through one of which runs the small river of the same name. TASSELL. The It. word tasso is a badger, also a yew-tree and an anvil ; but Tasso is…”
— Ludus Patronymicus; or, the etymology of curious surnames