Cottingham
A habitational surname from English places named Cottingham, most notably in Yorkshire and Northamptonshire.
The #7,868 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 73,406 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Cottingham is a place-name surname taken from one of the English villages called Cottingham. The place-name is generally understood as meaning "the homestead or village of the people of Cotta" or "the settlement associated with Cotta," combining an Old English personal name with the place-name ending -ham, "homestead" or "village." In surname use, it simply identified someone who came from that place.
History
The name is recorded by 19th-century surname writers as deriving from parishes in Yorkshire and Northamptonshire. It also spread into the Isle of Man, where it appears as an old local surname form in parish records. As with many English locational surnames, it later became established well beyond Britain, including in the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One historical note records a George Cottingham sailing for Virginia in 1635, showing the surname in early colonial migration.
From the historical record
“clergie." COTTINGHAM. Parishes in cos. York and Northampton. COTTLE. Perhaps from the district now called Cottles in Wiltshire. COTTON. Cottun, a place in the de- partment of Calvados in Normandy ; also several parishes in the counties of York, Chester, Staft'ord, &c. Both forms, viz. De Cottun, and De Cotton, are…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom