Origin and popularity of the name CHILTON

Origin

Chilton : English: habitational name from any of various places called Chilton for example in Berkshire Buckinghamshire County Durham Hampshire Kent Shropshire Somerset Suffolk and Wiltshire. The majority are shown by early forms to derive from Old English cild ‘child’ (see Child) + tūn ‘enclosure settlement’. One place of this name in Somerset possibly gets its first element from Old English cealc ‘chalk limestone’ and one on the Isle of Wight from the personal name Cēola (compare Chilcott) or from Old English ceole ‘deep valley’.

Childerstone : from a lost or unidentified place possibly in Suffolk. The place-name could be a compound of Old English cildra + Old English stān ‘stone’ with reference perhaps to a free standing boulder. In the surname the first element alternates between Childre- and Childe- apparently representing Old English cildra and cilda two different genitive plurals of Old English cild ‘child young (noble)man boy monk’ probably also ‘male heir’ (of any rank). Alternatively the second element is Old English tūn ‘estate’. Old English cild is sometimes compounded with tūn as is clear in early spellings of Chillaton (Devon) Chilton (Berks Somerset) and Chilton Street (Suffolk) as well as Chilson (Oxon) Chilston (Kent) and Chilstone (Herefs) which retain a singular genitival -s. If the original forms of Childerstone were *Cildratūn and *Cildatūn they could have alluded to joint ownership by several male heirs perhaps sokemen or free tenants as recorded for Childerley (Cambs). See Childerley. In that case the medial -s- is not original to the name but a later tautologous genitive added to Middle English childe and childre or childer. Chilton Street in Suffolk (Childton' in the late 12th cent.) is about 13 miles from Kettlebaston and Thorpe Morieux where the surname is first recorded but relevant early spellings with Childe(s)- or Childre(s)- have not been found.

More

Subject to the Terms and Conditions of Ancestry

Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 14,130 individuals with the name CHILTON on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name CHILTON