Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English : habitational name from any of various places called Wharton. Examples in Cheshire and Herefordshire are from an Old English river name Wæfer (derived from wæfre ‘wandering’, ‘winding’) + Old English tūn ‘settlement’; another in Lincolnshire has as its first element Old English wearde ‘beacon’ or waroð ‘shore’, ‘bank’; one in the former county of Westmorland (now part of Cumbria) is from Old English hwearf ‘wharf’, ‘embankment’ + tūn.
  • Richard Wharton (d. 1689) emigrated from England to MA in about 1667, in search of fortune (which he did not achieve) rather than religious freedom.