This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Elias'; from Elye (Eng. Elias), diminutive Elyot. One reason why Elliott is so largely represented in our directories is that it has absorbed nearly all our Elletts or Ellots, who are descended from Ellen; v. Eliot.

Elyot ad Cap' Ville, Cambridgeshire, 1273.

Henry Ell'ot, Buckinghamshire, ibid.

Thomas Elvot, Cambridgeshire, ibid.

Eliottus de Balliol. Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinesi.

Richard Eliot, 1307. Writs of Parliament.

Adam Elyotson, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Thomas Elyott, rector of Dickleburgh, Norfolk, 1303: History of Norfolk.

1607. Married — Thomas Eliot and Margaret Waite: St. Michael, Cornhill.

This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Elliot,'

The early form of this well-known Border name was Elwald or Elwold, for the full Old English AElfwald, and until the end of the fifteenth century the spelling of the name was fairly regular. Elwald and Elwold were common in Old English times and the name continued in use as a Christian name down to the period when surnames became common. It was a common name on the Borders, the original home of the Elliots. The form Elliot is used by the Minto family and most of the others on the Border, and Eliott is used by the family of Stobo. The four forms of the name are thus referred to in an old rhyme:

"The double L and single T

Descend from Minto and Wolflee,

The double T and single L

Mark the old race in Stobs that dwell,

The single L and single T

The Eliots of St. Germains be,

But double T and double L

Who they are, nobody can tell."

-Annals of a Border Club, p. 172Stolen from Fore bears

As very often happened in other Instances Elwald' as a Christian name became extinct, but survived as a surname. One of the earliest and most curious variants of the name was Elwand, which appears as early as 1502 (Trials, I, p. 32). The uniformity in the way of writing this name, which was, as already mentioned, maintained to the end of the fifteenth century, gave way in the sixteenth to a rich variety of spellings, of which Armstrong (Liddesdale, I, p. 178) gives no less than seventy examples, a number which really does not exhaust the list. Armstrong's list is reproduced here, with a few additions, as an illustration of the labor and difficulty encountered by one seeking for information on surnames at first hand:

Singular: AElwold, Allat, Dalliot, Eellot, Eleot (1624), Elewald, Eliot, Eliott, Eilat, Elleot (1655), Ellet, Ellett, Elltte, Elliott, Elliot, Ellioti, Elliswod, Eliot, Ellote (1639), Eliott, Elluat, Ellwald, Ellwod, Ellwodd, Ellwold, Ellwood, Elnuand, Elnwand, Eluand, Eluat (1556), Eluwand, Elvand, Elwaird, Elwald (1561), Elwalde (1494), Elwat, Elwod, Elwold, Elwood, Elwoold, Elyot, Elyoth, Hellwodd, Illot, Ilwand, Eleot, Elwet, Elwett, Elwoode, Helewald. Plural: Aylewoodes, Aylewoods, Elioats, Eliots, Ellattis, Elliottes, Ellotes, Eliots, Ellottes, Ellottis, Eliotts, Ellwoods, Eluottis (1570), Elwades, Elwaldes, Elwets, Elwaldis, Elwalds, Elwalls, Elwandis, Elwarths, Elwaths, Elwodds, Elwoldis, Elwolds, Elwoodes, Elwoods, Elwoolds, Eylewoodz, Ellyots, Elwatts, Elwottis, Eylwittes.

French diminutive of Elsas, q.v. [Elie + the diminutive suff. -ot] ... an harper that highte Eliot.—Morte d'Arthur, X. xxvii.

A name of doubtful origin. A William Aliot came into England with the Conqueror, and the name seems to be connected with Alis and Ellis. But Hals, speaking of the Eliots (Lord St. Germain's family), says: "These gentlemen I take to be of Scots original and so denominated from the local place of Eliot, near Dundee." D. Gilbert's Cornwall, ii. 66. The name, though very widely spread, certainly seems in most instances to have come from N. Britain, where a great clan so called existed.

The family are descended from Sir William de Aliot, who came to England with the Conqueror; his arms were, azure, a canton or; crest, an arm and sword; motto, "Par Saxa, per ignes, fortiter et recte." His descendants settled at the village of Elliot in Forfarshire, and some generations later, in the seventeenth century, were seated on the border, in Liddisdale.

Supposed to signify the son of Elias; Heliat, Welsh and Cornish-British, a huntsman, a pursuer.

Elliott,Elliot. —This name has three principal centres— one in the north of England, in the counties of Durham and Northumberland, and over the border in Roxburghshire and the neighbouring Scottish counties, another in Derbyshire, and the third in Bucks, Berks, and Sussex, whence it has extended into the other south - coast counties, excluding Kent. The scanty representation, or the absence of this name in the eastern coast counties from Kent northward to the borders of Durham, is remarkable.

The Elliots or Elliotts of the north of England and the Scottish border counties belong to an old Scottish border clan, and in fact the name still has its principal home in the Hawick district of Roxburghshire.

DNA analyses reveal that the salient haplogroup among Eliots (all spellings) is Celtic-Brittonic. The name is a variant of the Breton Halgoet, and access to French (Breton) registers of birth show clearly that many variants of Halgoet (the name of the pre-Conquest Viscount of the Halegouet or Halgoet, Judicael, a Breton, who was given the honour of Totnes subsequent to repulsion by a mainly Breton army, also led by the Breton, Brien de Penthievre, of the invasion mounted from Ireland by King Harold's son's. Brien was the younger brother of Count Alain of Richmond, also given vast lands, but in Yorkshire, by the Conqueror. Corrupted by Norman French, the Halgoet variants started with the letter 'H', 'A' or 'E'. The Elliots came from the Morbihan, while the Alliots from the Pays Nantais in the Loire Atlantique. Both names are found today in higher concentrations in those French departements. Elligott, for example, is the English corruption of yet another Breton variant, Elegoet, found mainly in Finistere, the old homelands of the Halgoet tribe, dispersed during the Viking wars.