Boston
A surname that can come from the English place-name Boston, or less certainly from an old personal name tradition recorded in early scholarship.
The #2,309 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 19,524 Americans shares it.
Etymology
In most cases, Boston is a locational surname taken from the town of Boston in Lincolnshire. That place-name is usually explained as meaning “Botolph’s town,” from an Old English personal name plus tūn, “settlement, farm, town.” Some 19th-century writers also tried to connect the surname with an Anglo-Saxon personal name, but that is not the usual modern explanation for the name.
History
As a surname, Boston would have arisen for people who had moved away from the Lincolnshire town and were identified by their place of origin. The name later appears in English records and, through migration, in America as well. Because Boston is also a famous city name, the surname is especially visible in English-speaking countries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Boston, Lincolnshire is one of the namesakes of Boston, Massachusetts, whose city name was carried across the Atlantic by Puritan settlers.
From the historical record
“of Wei. ysgawen, elder-tree] BOSTON (Eng.) The A.-Sax. pers. name Botwiilf here involved is f. O.E. bdt (see Bott below) -I- wulf. BOTT (Eng.) The A.-Sax. Bota, Botta, Bote are f. O.E. bdt — O.Sax. bdta, 'compensa- tion,' ' atonement,' ' remedy.' BRETTARGH [the second represents tlie O.N.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)