Livingston surname meaning

Livingston is a Scottish habitational surname from the parish and village of Livingston in West Lothian. The place-name means “Leving’s toun”—the farm or settlement of a man called Leving (from Old English Lēofing, based on lēof, “dear”). A twelfth-century landholder of that name gave the locality its lasting title, and families from the estate took Livingston or Livingstone as a surname. Some later bearers adopted the name as an Anglicization of unrelated Gaelic or Jewish surnames. Levingston is a variant. Place is the catalog type, and the West Lothian etymology is high confidence.