Yelverton Family History

English (Devon): habitational name from either of two places called Yelverton in Norfolk or Devon. Medieval examples of the surname are from the Norfolk place but the modern surname in Britain is associated mainly with Devon where the earliest record of the surname is found in 1761 and is probably a substitution for Elford an earlier form of the Devon placename.

The Devon place, a hamlet in Buckland Monachorum, is not officially on record as Yelverton until the 19th century when the Great Western Railway so named the station it built there in 1859. It is a dialect pronunciation of Elverton which is first recorded in 1765 as an extended form of its medieval name Elford + -ton ‘town’.

The Norfolk placename is recorded as Ailuertuna in 1086 and probably derives from the Old English personal name Æthelfrith or Geldfrith + tūn ‘farmstead, estate’.