Hamilton Family History

Scottish and northern Irish: habitational name from what is now a deserted village in the parish of Barkby Leicestershire. This is named from Old English hamel ‘crooked’ + dūn ‘hill’. Hamilton near Glasgow was founded by the English Hamiltons and named after them and later bearers took their surname from the Scottish place.

In the north of Ireland where many Hamiltons settled in the 17th century this surname may sometimes have been adopted for Hamill. It has also been adopted as an Anglicized form of southern Irish Ó hUrmholtaigh.