This interesting and uncommon surname, though well recorded in 19th Century Irish church registers, is ultimately of English locational origin from a now lost place. The component elements of the name are the Old English pre 7th Century personal byname "Fengel" meaning "Prince", plus "tun", an enclosure or settlement; hence, "Fengel's tun". The surname first appears on record at the beginning of the 17th Century, (see below), and re-emerges in Lancashire in the early 19th Century with the registration of one, William Fingleton's marriage to Mary Sims in Manchester Cathedral on January 18th 1819. On October 5th 1820, the marriage of Elizabeth Fingleton and Bricf Blair took place in Aghalce, County Antrim, and on February 20th 1843. William Fingleton married a Frances Ann Pilkington in Manchester Cathedral. On June 15th 1846, William Fingleton, a labourer, aged 30, who embarked from Liverpool on the ship "Hottinguer" bound for New York, is listed as "an Irish famine Immigrant". The birth of Thomas, son of James Fingleton and Mary Shortell, on February 23rd 1864, in Maryborough Queen's County, is among the several births recorded there. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas Fingleton, (christening), which was dated October 1600, St. Andrews, Enfield, London, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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