Horton

Part of speech: noun, verb, adjective

Definitions

1. A common English family name of locational origin, borne by many people across England and elsewhere ; the name of several small villages or parishes in England
2. A surname found mainly in England and among English-speaking families ; a designation shared by a number of English towns and rural settlements
3. An English family name derived from place-names ; a label given to various small English villages and hamlets across the country

Etymology: Horton is a name built from two Old English elements, and the first of them is the surprising part. Most of the many English places called Horton take their name from "horh", meaning "mud" or "slime", combined with "tūn", meaning an enclosure or settlement. A Horton, in other words, was originally a muddy farmstead, and the name was given to many small villages and hamlets across the country. One Gloucestershire village has a different origin. Its name comes from "heorot", meaning "stag" or "hart", joined to the same "tūn". So the name there means something closer to "deer enclosure" or "stag settlement", which shows that two unrelated words happened to produce identical spellings after they were combined with "tūn". Because so many places bore the name, it was later taken up as a surname by families who lived near or came from them, and it is this use that most people now encounter.