Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from any of a number of places called Alderton. Those in Suffolk and Shropshire (Alretuna in Domesday Book) are named in Old English as ‘the settlement (Old English tūn) by the alders (Old English alor)’. Those in Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, and Wiltshire are named as ‘settlement associated with Ealdhere’. The one in Essex contains a different personal name, probably the woman’s name Æ{dh}elwaru. In England, the surname is most common in East Anglia, making the places in Suffolk and Essex the most likely sources.