Johnston
A surname usually tied to places named Johnston or Johnstone, meaning “John’s town” or “John’s settlement.”
The #225 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 2,350 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Johnston is a habitational surname from places called Johnston or Johnstone, especially in Scotland. The name is built from the personal name John plus Old English tūn, meaning an enclosure, farmstead, or settlement. So the literal sense is “John’s town” or “John’s estate.”
History
Historical surname dictionaries note Johnston as a common local name, particularly associated with Dumfriesshire and Renfrewshire. It has often been confused with Johnson, but the two are distinct: Johnston points to a place-name, while Johnson is patronymic, meaning “son of John.” The surname is well established in Scotland and later spread widely through Britain and the wider English-speaking world.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some Irish genealogical works note that Johnston can sometimes be interchanged in records with forms derived from Irish equivalents of John, which can make family lines tricky to trace.
From the historical record
“Guillim's Display of Herakby. JOHNSTON. JOHNSTONE. Post- towns and parishes in Dumfriesshire and Eenfrewshire. For a local surname this is exceedingly common, there being between sixty and seventy traders bearing it in Lond. Direct. It is often confounded with Johnson. JOICE. See Joyce. JOLIFFE. O. Eng.joZi/…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom