English: habitational name from any of the various places called Chilton, for example in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, County Durham, Hampshire, Kent, Shropshire, Somerset, Suffolk, and Wiltshire. The majority are shown by early forms to derive from Old English cild ‘child’ (see Child) + tun ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’. One place of this name in Somerset possibly gets its first element from Old English cealc ‘chalk’, ‘limestone’, and one on the Isle of Wight from the personal name Ceola (compare Chilcott), or from Old English ceole ‘deep valley’.