Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Eltone 1086 DB

• Heltona Exon

• Haltone c.1086 GeldR

• Halcton' 1210 P

• Helton(') 1212 Fees 1213 Ch 1227 FF 1244 Ass 1255 Salis 1268 Ass 1272 Ch 1280 Ass 1285 FA 1288 Ass 1291 Tax 1303 FA 1774 Hutch1

• Heltun' 1221 Ilch

• Heleton 1321 Ipm

• Hilton' 1280 Ass 1795 Boswell

Etymology

v. tūn 'farm, village'. There can be no certainty about the first el. Fägersten 189 tentatively suggests h(e)alh 'nook' or hēla 'heel' in some topographical sense, but hēla seems unlikely and h(e)alh does not account for the overwhelming preponderance of e spellings (though the early Halc - form now adds a little weight to the suggestion by supporting the hitherto isolated a spelling from GeldR, which occurs as the name of Whiteway hundred q. v. supra ). Ekwall (DEPN) compares Hilton and Helton We and suggests either helde , hielde 'slope' or helde 'tansy' (the former el. is favoured by PN We 2 103, 200 for the two We names). For the Do Hilton, h(i)elde 'slope' would in fact be topographically suitable and, as Anderson 116 points out, is perhaps more likely than helde in spite of the absence of u spellings and the rarity of i spellings.