Avon

Family name origins & meanings

• English : possibly a habitational name from a settlement on one of the rivers or small streams called Avon or Aven. These river names derive from the Celtic word for ‘river’, as reflected in Welsh afon and Gaelic abhainn. The modern surname is concentrated in Somerset and Wiltshire, England, suggesting it is associated chiefly with the Avon river that rises on the Gloucester-Wiltshire border and flows through Wiltshire and Somerset into the Severn.