Origin of Hotton

Recorded as Hotten, Hotton, and Hutton, this is an English surname. It is locational from any of some thirty parishes and townships called Hutton or Hoton spread throughout the country. The placenames are composed of the Old English pre 7th century words "hoh", meaning a spur or ridge of a hill, and a second element of "-tun", meaning a homestead, hence the "homestead on the spur of a hill". Some of the place names in Cumberland were early recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Hoton" and in Yorkshire as "Hotun".

Early examples of the surname recordings include Nicholas de Hutune in the Assize Rolls of Lancashire in 1246, and Andrew de Hotton of Southampton, in the charters known as the Testa de Neville, in the year 1272. Later examples taken from surviving church registers include John Hutton who married Mary Flynte at St James Clerkenwell on July 1st 1572, and Mary Hoten who married Thomas Tombes at St. Vedast, Foster Lane on December 23rd 1661. There have been two archbishops of York, both called Matthew Hutton, the first in Elizabethan times and the second during the reign of King George 11 (1727 - 1760). The first recording of the family name is shown to be that of Ernewi de Hottana. This was dated 1175, in the Pipe Rolls of the county of Yorkshire, during the reign of King Henry 11nd of England, 1154 - 1189. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.