Chatterton

Variations – Chatsworth, Chatwood, Chatham, Chadsey
Racial Origin – Anglo-Saxon
Source – A place name

This is a group of family names which has been derived from places names, which, though not the same, are all of the same character.

The basic element in these names is the ancient Anglo-Saxon word for cottage, or hut, which was “eyte” or “eete” (the pronunciation of the Anglo-Saxon “e” was always like “k,” for, as a matter of fact, there was no “k” in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet). This was the usual word denoting “hous” or “dwelling,” the ancient equivalent of the modern word “house” being reserved for buildings of a more pretentious or public nature.

The place name of Chatteron, or more properly “Chadderton,” from which the family name was descriptively derived, was compounded from the Anglo-Saxon “eete-doir-dun,” and signified “the fortified dwelling in the wood.”

Chatham is the name of a town in Kent.  It is compounded of “eyte” or “eete” and “ham,” the latter signifying a village.

Chatsworth is a compound of “eete” and “worth.” At the period when family names were formed this word had come to mean any farmstead. But the compound of the place name had occurred long before, when the word still preserved its literal meaning of a “warded” or enclosed place.  Hence the place name meant not a farm cottage, but a cottage in an enclosure. Usually the enclosure was a wooded place.

Chatwood was a place name signifying a cottage in the wood and Chadsey a dwelling near the sea.