Pattison
Usually a patronymic surname meaning “son of Patrick,” with later spelling shifts from the same family as Patterson and Pattinson.
The #6,505 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 59,181 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is generally taken as a patronymic from the personal name Patrick, with Patt- as a shortened pet form and -son meaning “son of.” Early surname writers also treated it as a spelling variant related to Patterson and Pattinson. In older sources, the exact path is sometimes uncertain, but the Patrick explanation is the standard one.
History
The name appears in English records in forms that overlap with Patterson and Pattinson, especially in northern England and Scotland. Because spellings were highly fluid in earlier centuries, Pattison often developed as a local or scribal variant rather than a separately fixed surname. It remains most common in Britain and the English-speaking world.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname scholars sometimes grouped Pattison with a whole cluster of related names built from Patrick, showing how unstable spelling could be before standardization.
From the historical record
“PATTISON". The son of Patrick ? PAUL. PAULL. 1. A well-known Christian name. 2. A parish in Yorkshire, olim Pagliill. PAULET. The patriarch of this noble family was Hercules, lord of Tournon in Picardy, who coming into England, temp. Henry I., and settling on the lordship of Paulet, CO. Hants, assumed his surname…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom