Waldon
A surname that most likely began as a place-name, probably meaning someone from a wooded or walled settlement.
The #7,900 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 73,686 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Waldon is most likely a locational surname, used for someone who came from a place called Waldon or from a similarly named settlement. The first element is probably Old English weald or wald , often linked with woodland, though old surname writers sometimes connect names like this with older place-forms that are not always easy to separate cleanly. In practice, the name is usually treated as a variant or reduced form in the Walden/Waldron name group.
History
19th-century surname scholars grouped Waldon with other names such as Walden and Waldron, suggesting a shared place-name background. In England, spellings often shifted freely, especially when names moved between counties and into parish records. The modern surname is now found beyond Britain, including in the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older reference works treated Waldon as part of a broader family of similar place-names, so its exact origin can be hard to pin down from spelling alone.
From the historical record
“Anciently, Waldegrave. Walden. A loc. n., Yorks Waldon. See Walden Waldron. A loc. n., Suss. Or Dch. Woelderen ; a p.n. Walduck. Dch., G. Waldeck; a”
— British Family Names: their origin and meaning (1st ed.)