The Paton Family Name

Heraldry is personal: arms associated with the Patton surname were borne by specific families, and sharing the name does not mean sharing the blazon.

What Paton means

Long before computers fixed spellings, Paton and Patton were used side by side. Surname dictionaries give the meaning as “Little Pate (Patrick)”.

Paton drops the “t” of Patton, a simplification that clerks often made. Regional accents shaped spellings long before dictionaries fixed them. In the 2010 US Census, 3,059 Americans gave Paton as their last name (rank 10,491). That puts it inside the top 25,000 US surnames. From 1891 to 2000, 808 births in France were registered under Paton. Births under the name grew in the later decades.

Want more than a summary? See the Paton family name pack.