Recorded in the spellings of Bainton and the more popular Baynton, this is an English locational surname. it originates from the parishes of Bainton in Yorkshire, Baynton or Bainton (the places are confusingly spelt both ways!) in the counties of Northampton and Oxford, or from Bainton, what in the 17th century was known as a 'tything', and which may have been a hamlet, in the parish of Edginton, in Wiltshire. The Northampton village name is first recorded in the 10th century as 'Badintone', a name of uncertain etymology, but may have been tribal as in 'the lands (ton) of the Bada people'. It is almost impossible to be absolutely certain as to the original meaning of locational names, and the suffix may not be a name at all, but something more descriptive such as a short form of badger, or refer to a 'baie', a fenced area, at a time when few places were so delinated. Locational surnames are also usually 'from' names. That is to say that they were often given to people after the left their original homes and moved elsewhere. The easiest form of identification being to call a person by the name of the place from whence they came. Whether this was the case with the first known nameholder, one John de Bayntun, a freeman of the city of York in the year 1293, is not known. He may well have been the squire of Bainton in Yorkshire. Other recordings include Sir Edward Bayntun of Wiltshire in 1661, and Edward Bainton, who married Ann Hart at St George's Chapel, Hannover Square, London, in 1754.

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