Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from the place in Bedfordshire (named in Old English as ‘settlement (Old English tūn) on the (river) Lea’), or, more plausibly in view of the pattern of distribution, from Luton in Devon (near Teignmouth), named in Old English as ‘Lēofgifu’s settlement’ (from an Old English female personal name composed of the elements lēof ‘dear’, ‘beloved’ + gifu ‘gift’). A further possible source of the name is Luton in Kent, named as the ‘settlement of Lēofa’.