Tuttle
A surname most likely from a place-name meaning a lookout hill, though some writers connected it with an old English personal name.
The #1,267 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 11,126 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Most 19th-century surname writers treated Tuttle as a local surname from a hill or height used as a lookout, related to place-names such as Tothill and similar forms. The place-name element is usually explained as Old English with the sense of a watch hill or lookout hill. A smaller tradition linked it with an old English personal name, Tutta, but the locational explanation is the one most often given in the historical sources consulted here.
History
Bardsley and other surname writers group Tuttle with a cluster of spellings around Tothill, Toothill, Tuthill, and Tottle, especially in England. The name later appears in Scotland, Ireland, and North America through migration, with the modern U.S. form Tuttle becoming especially established there. Historical writers were not fully agreed on whether the surname began as a place-name or as a patronymic, but the place-name reading dominates.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Several old surname dictionaries explain related forms by saying a tote-hill or toothill was a hill chosen for its commanding view—essentially a medieval lookout point.
From the historical record
“TUTILL TUTTLE TUTT \ (Eng.) the A.-Sax. pers. name Tut{a, TUTTE J TM(a [prob. conn, with the O.Teut. Thiuda-,Thiot{a- names : see underTheed] TUXBURY for Tewkesbury, q.v. TUXFORD (Scand. -f Eng.) Bel. to Tuxford (Notts), i3th-i4th cent.r«fe5/orrf=TuKE's”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)Notable people named Tuttle
- MacKenzie Scott (b. 1970)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.