Livingstone

Variations – Livingston
Racial Origin – English
Source – A Place Name

Here is a family name which is likely to throw you off the track, first by the final “e,” and secondly by the element “living.”

It should be explained at the outset that the final “e” does not belong in the name, except as it has been sanctioned by long usage, for the original termination was “ton,” “don” or “tun,” all forms of the same old Anglo-Saxon word which has given us our modern word “town,” and which in those days signaled a fortified place. The evolution of meaning to “town” was a natural one, for the towns of early days were, of course, fortified. In fact, it was the necessity for mutual defense which first drew men together in towns and fortified places.

The family name, therefore, belongs in the class of those which have been based upon place name, indicating the residence or former home of the first bearers of them.

Livingstone, or Linvingston, is a place in West Lothian, Scotland. The original form of the place name was “Livinguston” or “Livingusdun,” made up of the ending already referred to and the given name of the feudal chieftain under whose leadership the town was built. This chieftain, “Livingus,” lived about the year 1124.