This unusual name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, although also found in Scotland from the 13th century. It is a locational surname deriving from the place called "Panton" in Lincolnshire. The placename is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Pantone" and derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century word "Pamp", related to the Old Scandinavian byname "Pampi" and describes a hillock or mound. It is used with "tun", meaning a settlement or village, to give the village on the mound, unusual perhaps in the flat Lincolnshire landscape. The modern surname has a number of variants, ranging from Panton and Pentin, to Pantin and Panting. Examples of the surname recordings include Hugh de Paunton of Lanarkshire who rendered homage to King John of Scotland in 1296, and Alexander Pantone, Burgess of Aberdeen in 1464. English recordings include Pleasance Penton who married Richard Beamond at St Giles Cripplegate on December 11th 1654, William Peinton on December 20th 1690, and Thomas Pentin, christened at St Johns Horseleydowns, London on August 27th 1848. "Mrs Panton" was an early settler in the New World. She appears in the list of landowners in the parish of St. Michaels in the Barbadoes in 1680. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Hugh de Panton, which was dated 1273, in the "Lincolnshire Hundred Rolls", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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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