Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place in Kent named Chittenden, probably from an Old English personal name Citta (perhaps a byname derived from cī{dh} ‘shoot’, ‘sprout’) + -ing- denoting association + Old English denn ‘swine pasture’.
- William Chittenden came from Cranbrook, Kent, England, and settled in Guilford, CT, in 1639. His fourth-generation descendant Thomas Chittenden, born in East Guilford, CT, in 1730, received a grant of land in 1774 in VT, where he was governor, as was his son Martin. Thomas’s other sons each sat in the VT assembly and held various public offices.