Tuttle

Etymology

Most 19th-century surname writers treated Tuttle as a local surname from a hill or height used as a lookout, related to place-names such as Tothill and similar forms. The place-name element is usually explained as Old English with the sense of a watch hill or lookout hill. A smaller tradition linked it with an old English personal name, Tutta, but the locational explanation is the one most often given in the historical sources consulted here.

History

Bardsley and other surname writers group Tuttle with a cluster of spellings around Tothill, Toothill, Tuthill, and Tottle, especially in England. The name later appears in Scotland, Ireland, and North America through migration, with the modern U.S. form Tuttle becoming especially established there. Historical writers were not fully agreed on whether the surname began as a place-name or as a patronymic, but the place-name reading dominates.

Origin

Regions

Variant spellings

Fun fact

Several old surname dictionaries explain related forms by saying a tote-hill or toothill was a hill chosen for its commanding view—essentially a medieval lookout point.

Related surnames