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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : metonymic occupational name for a maker or seller of buttons, from Old French bo(u)ton ‘knob’, ‘lump’.
  • English : possibly a topographic name for someone who lived in a valley, from Old Norse botn ‘valley bottom’, or a habitational name from a place named with this word, as for example Botton in Lancashire or Botton Cross in North Yorkshire.
  • Norwegian : habitational name from any of various farms named Botn, Botten, or Botnen, from Old Norse botn ‘small valley’, ‘valley end’. Compare Botner.

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