Family name origins & meanings
- English (mainly Lancashire) : habitational name from any of several places named Halton, usually from Old English h(e)alh ‘nook’, ‘hollow’ + tūn ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’. Halton in Cheshire, however, is possibly named from an Old English hāthel ‘heathery place’ + tūn, and Halton in Northumberland from an Old English hāw ‘look out’ + hyll ‘hill’ + tūn.
- Irish : altered form of O’Haltahan, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hUltacháin ‘descendant of Ultachán’, a diminutive of Ultach ‘Ulsterman’. This is a rare Fermanagh surname, which is sometimes Anglicized as Nolan.
- Most English bearers of this name trace their descent from William de Halton, who was living at Halton, Lancashire, in 1346.