This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Mille,' (1) i.e. Miles, from diminutive Mill ot, or Mil ot, or (a) perhaps from Mille, the nick, of Millicent, a popular girl's name in the 13th and 14th centuries, especially in Yorkshire. This again would become as diminutive Mill-ot, or Mil-ot, just as in the same county Margaret gave us Magot and Magotson, and Matilda Tillot and Tillotson, the one from the nick. Magg, the other from the nick. Till. On the whole it is probable that Millicent is the parent.

Richard fil. Milot. Rotuli Curiae Regis.

Roger Millot, Nottinghamshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

John Milot, Huntingdonshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Willelmus Melot, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Johannes Millot, 1379: ibid.

Rogerus Millotson, 1379: ibid.

Matilda Millot, 1379: ibid.

The last two instances are together.

Thomas Mylett, Yorkshire: Fabric Rolls of York Minster: Wills and Inventories (Surtees Society).

Members of the same family are found thus entered:

John Mylote, County Durham, temp. 1380.

Robert Millot, County Durham, 1512: ibid.

1696. Married —William Millett and Beatre Vodell: St. Michael, Cornhill.

Modern synonyms of this name are Mellott, Mellet, Millott, Mylotte, Mylot and Milod. As Milot and Milet it appears in the Justiciary Rolls, in Co. Cork 1311, Co. Tipperary 1313 and Co. Kilkenny 1314; Nicholas Milet was a Kilkenny juror in 1356and later deeds in the Ormond collection indicate that the name was to be found in the Ormond country, both in Tipperary and Kilkenny throughout the following centuries. Two place-names taken from the family occur in the sixteenth century Fiants: Millotteston, Co. Kilkenny, while Ballvilode, * mentioned in the Co. Tipperary Civil Survey (in bar. Kilnamanagh), may possibly be of the same origin. The association with these counties continues into the nineteenth century: Ossory and Cashel wills, for example, are recorded for Mylod, Millett etc. in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and Griffith's Valuation of 1851 lists householders of the name throughout counties Kilkenny and Tipperary. I am informed by Father Walter Skehan, an authority on north Tipperary families, that the majority of Millett families in that area were Protestants in the eighteenth century and he believes they were descended from William Millett of Drangan who appears in the heart money rolls in 1665 and whose will was proved in 1672. Thomas Millatt, presumably his son, was a burgess of the Corporation of Fethard in 1707.

Notwithstanding this concentration in the Ormond country it is equally true that, at least since the early seventeenth century, Mellott etc., must be regarded also as a Connacht surname. Several appear in Strafford's Inquisition of Co. Mayo (1635) in the barony of Kilmaine; no less than 13 Mellott householders will be found in the census of the parish of Ballinrobe carried out by Father Francis Burke in 1783; and the birth statistics for 1865 * are remarkable: of 15 registered, ten are in Co. Mayo, four in an adjacent Connacht county and only one in Co. Kilkenny.

Mylot, Milet etc. are diminutives of Miles, which as a rule is derived from the Latin miles (soldier).

Families of the name were in Cornwall before they became established in Ireland.

*None of these appears in the modern Townlands Index, but there is a Ballyvalode in Co. Limerick near the Tipperary border.

The French Mille (v. Mill (French) + the diminutive suff. -et, -ot.

Mellott and Mylotte are two of several variant spellings of this name: these are all derived from miles a soldier. From the early fourteenth century families so called were associated with the Ormond country; but from the seventeenth their habitat has been mainly Co. Mayo. SIF 113

Fr.; personal name, diminutive.