Bottoms
A surname from a place-name or landscape term meaning a low-lying hollow or valley bottom.
The #7,620 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 70,862 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Bottoms is tied to the old English dialect word bottom, used for a low place, hollow, or valley floor. In northern English place-names it often referred to land at the bottom of a hill or moor, and the surname likely arose from living near such a spot. The final -s may reflect a plural place-name form or a surname formed from residence 'at the bottoms.'
History
The cited nineteenth- and early twentieth-century surname writers treat Bottoms as a northern English place-based name, especially associated with Yorkshire dialect and place-names. It fits the common English surname pattern of taking a family name from where a person lived rather than from an occupation or personal trait. The form is still most familiar in Britain and in descendants of British migrants, including the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bardsley notes that there are many more surnames built on Top than on Bottom, which makes Bottoms a less common but very characteristic landscape name.
From the historical record
“shire dialect, 'bottom o'th moor,' 'boltoma'th hill'; cf. Birkenshaw Bottoms, near Gomenal, co. York; also Bottom Brow, near Skircoal, CO. York. H.E. bolun, botiome, and bothom. 'Botune, or botum {ix)tyin),/M(u/n»i' : PrompL Parv. Many compoundi have found their”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances