Weston
A common English locational surname meaning someone from the west town or western farmstead.
The #1,380 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 12,043 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Weston comes from Old English west plus tun, meaning a farmstead, enclosure, village, or estate. In plain terms, it meant “the west settlement” or “western farmstead,” and many places in England were called Weston for that reason. The surname was usually taken from one of those places, though in some families it may also have developed from older forms like Wistoneston.
History
The name is widely distributed in England because there were many places called Weston, and different families adopted the surname independently from them. Lower specifically notes especially widespread Westons in Surrey and Sussex, while Harrison points to Westons in places such as Bath and Dorset and explains the old spelling with doubled consonants. The surname also appears very early as a personal name, which may have helped its later spread as a hereditary surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same naming pattern that produced Weston also gave English surnames like Easton, Norton, and Sutton.
From the historical record
“WESTOBY for Westerby, q.v. WESTON (Eng.) Bel. to Weston (common) = the West Farmstead, Hamlet, or Village [O.E.^est -\- tun, dat. tune] Tlie two ts were assimilated to one in the A.-Saxon period. Thus, to take two loth-cent. instances, Weston, nr. Bath (so called from its position relative to the latter), is…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)