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.