Meaning
'Barton' is commonly thought to mean, in essence, 'barley farm'; deriving from 'bere' ('barley') and 'tun' ('settlement' or 'enclosure'). Wikipedia dissents and says it is an archaic English word meaning 'lands of the manor or meadow'. In early records it was sometimes confused with 'Burton' which is thought to mean 'settlement by a fort'; derived from 'burg' or 'burh'.
Places
At any rate, 'Barton' is considered a 'locational surname', given to people who came from places called Barton (or perhaps Burton). There are many of those in England, as the interactive map below shows. However it is not at all uncommon for places to be named after families, and some of the places called Barton are probably named after people, rather than the other way around.
View Places called 'Barton' in the UK (red markers; also with 'Burton' in yellow) in a larger map
Statistics and distribution
The website http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/ provides statistics and distributions for British surnames based mainly on census data from 1881 and 1998:
| Frequency |
1881 |
1998 |
Change |
| Frequency |
16207 |
20369 |
+4162 |
| Rank Order |
243 |
264 |
-21 |
| Occurrences per million names |
599 |
547 |
-52 |
| Ethnicity of forename |
Percentage |
| British or unknown |
99.16 |
| ---English or unknown |
98.09 |
| ---Irish |
0.56 |
| ---Scottish |
0.18 |
| ---Welsh |
0.33 |
| Jewish |
0.02 |
| Balkan |
0.01 |
| French |
0.04 |
| German or Dutch |
0.07 |
| Greek or Greek Cypriot |
0.06 |
| Hispanic |
0.07 |
| Hungarian |
0.00 |
| Italian |
0.13 |
| Nordic |
0.06 |
| Polish or Czech |
0.02 |
| Russian |
0.01 |
| Black African |
0.10 |
| North African |
0.02 |
| Turkish or Turkish Cypriot |
0.02 |
| Other Muslim |
0.10 |
| Indian |
0.09 |
| ---Hindi |
0.04 |
| ---Sikh |
0.02 |
| ---Other South Asian |
0.00 |
| East Asian |
0.05 |
Its companion site http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org provides similar maps for the world, and some other countries, but only North America shows any meaningful pattern:
This site also provides the following statistics:
| Top Countries |
Frequency per million |
| United Kingdom |
483.62 |
| Australia |
450.97 |
| New-Zealand |
350.94 |
| United States |
278.41 |
| Canada |
220.97 |
| Ireland |
116.23 |
| Poland |
48.16 |
| Hungary |
42.45 |
| Luxembourg |
25.51 |
| Germany |
22.35 |
| Rank |
Top Cities |
| 1 |
Liverpool, North West, United Kingdom |
| 2 |
Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom |
| 3 |
Sheffield, Yorkshire and Humberside, United Kingdom |
| 4 |
Manchester, North West, United Kingdom |
| 5 |
Tunbridge Wells, South East, United Kingdom |
| 6 |
Bristol, South West, United Kingdom |
| 7 |
Nottingham, East Midlands, United Kingdom |
| 8 |
Leeds, Yorkshire and Humberside, United Kingdom |
| 9 |
Portsmouth, South East, United Kingdom |
| 10 |
Preston, North West, United Kingdom |
| Region name |
Frequency per million |
| South Wairarapa district, New Zealand |
2208.72 |
| Waitomo district, New Zealand |
1457.73 |
| New Brunswick, Canada |
1183.55 |
| Hurunui district, New Zealand |
1083.42 |
| Waikato district, New Zealand |
998.28 |
| North West, United Kingdom |
894.82 |
| Waipa district, New Zealand |
887.31 |
| Utah, United States |
856.07 |
| Westland district, New Zealand |
794.66 |
| Hamilton City, New Zealand |
724.32 |
| Rank |
Top forenames |
| 1 |
David |
| 2 |
Robert |
| 3 |
Michael |
| 4 |
Richard |
| 5 |
William |
| 6 |
Andrew |
| 7 |
Margaret |
| 8 |
Christopher |
| 9 |
Mary |
| 10 |
Susan |
Barton Historical Society
The Barton Historical Society operates a website at http://bartonsite.org/ which aims to be a 'gateway to the largest collection of materials related to Barton Family History on the Internet'. If you're a Barton, but not one of my Bartons, then try their site.