Family name origins & meanings
- Scottish : habitational name from Covinton in Lanarkshire, first recorded in the late 12th century in the Latin form Villa Colbani, and twenty years later as Colbaynistun. By 1422 it had been collapsed to Cowantoun, and at the end of the 15th century it first appears in the form Covingtoun. It is nevertheless clearly named with the personal name Colban (see Coleman 1) + Old English tūn ‘enclosure’; Colban was a follower of David, Prince of Cumbria, in about 1120.
- English : habitational name from a place in Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire) named Covington, from an Old English personal name Cofa + Old English -ing- denoting association + tūn ‘settlement’.