Frequency: (14945)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
English: habitational name from places in Lancashire and Sussex. The former seems from the present-day distribution of the surname to be the major source, and is named from Old English scingel ‘shingle(s)’ + tūn ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’; the latter gets its name from Old English sengel ‘burnt clearing’ + tūn.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
