Family name origins & meanings
- French : from the Old French oblique case of the Germanic personal name Bodo meaning ‘messenger’, ‘herald’ (see Bothe).
- French : nickname for someone with a prominent wart, carbuncle, or boil, from Old French bo(u)ton ‘knob’, ‘lump’, ‘excrescence’ (from bo(u)ter ‘to thrust or strike’).
- French : metonymic occupational name for a maker or seller of buttons, from Old French bo(u)ton, the same word as in 2, specialized to mean ‘button’.
- French : A Bouton from the Lyonnais region of France is documented in Trois Rivières, Quebec, in 1702, while Huguenots of this name are recorded in Staten Island.
