Where the Johnston name comes from

Johnston means "John's town", built from the given name John in its possessive form and the Middle English toun, a settlement. In Scotland it began as a habitational name, taken from a place called Johnston in Dumfriesshire. In England it arose separately as a variant of Johnson. The English line traces back to medieval Northern England, where families of the name clustered in Yorkshire and Northumberland.

The name took shape while the Anglo-Scottish border was being drawn, which is why it stays so closely tied to the border country. Johnstons living near the River Tweed played a significant role in the Wars of Scottish Independence, and the name later linked to the Scottish clan of Johnstone. By the 2010 United States Census it ranked as the 225th most common surname in the country, carried by 131,373 people.