Frequency: (345)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. English: habitational name from any of the various places so called, for example in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Wiltshire. For the most part the first element is either Old English (ge)mæne ‘common’, ‘shared’ (see Manley, Manship), or the Old English byname Mann(a) (see Mann). However, in the case of Manton in Lincolnshire the early forms show clearly that it was Old English m(e)alm ‘sand’, ‘chalk’, with reference to the poor soil of the region. The second element is in each case Old English tūn ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’.
2. Irish (Cork): Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Manntáin ‘descendant of Manntán’, a personal name derived from a diminutive of manntach ‘toothless’.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
