# Pelton (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/pelton/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A habitational surname from Old English.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 5,753 |
| US rank (2010) | 5,980 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 53,667 people |
| Change since 2000 | +11% (5,177 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

From the Old English personal name *Peola + tūn (“enclosure; settlement, town”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Pelton in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 92% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 2.9% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.4% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.6% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.7% |
| Two or more races | 1.1% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Pelton in the United States and the German Empire.

## People named Pelton

- Lester Allan Pelton, American mechanical engineer (1829–1908)
- Agnes Lawrence Pelton, American artist (1881-1961)
- Elizabeth Pelton, American swimmer

## Similar surnames

Poulton, Platon, Palladino, Paladino, Plowden, Plotner, Platten.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.