Chabot
A French surname probably nicknamed for the chabot, a small bullhead-like fish with a big head.
The #8,676 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 81,528 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is usually explained from French chabot, the name of a small freshwater fish known in English as a bullhead. Historical writers note that the fish name was especially current in Normandy and the Channel Islands, where the surname also appears early and often. In older scholarship there was occasional confusion with words for "sabot" or "clog," but the fish explanation is the better-attested one.
History
French forms of the name are well established, and the spelling Cabot is closely related in older and regional usage. The surname is especially associated with Normandy, the Channel Islands, and French Canada, and it is famously borne by the explorer Sebastian Cabot, whose family origins were long debated. Some sources also connect Jersey bearers of the name to early seafaring and cross-Channel migration.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One 19th-century source explicitly warns that the family name Rohan-Chabot is not connected with the Norman word for "sabot" (a clog), but with the fish shown in the family arms.
From the historical record
“CERNE. Parishes in cos. Dorset, &c. CHABOT. CABOT. A common French surname. In the latter form it is of fre- quent occurrence in Jersey. It appears to be derived from the little fish known by us as the "bullhead," but on the shores of Normandy and the Channel Islands, where it abounds, as the chabot or cahot.…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom