Dalton

Dalton is an English place name and surname, from the Old English dael and tun, meaning settlement in the valley. It rose in the U.S. in the 1990s alongside the wave of surname-style boys' names and has held steady ever since, now near 432. John Dalton gave us the atomic theory, Patrick Swayze gave us Road House; the name covers both science lab and barroom bouncer with ease. Two syllables, a sturdy stop in the middle, a clean n at the close. Dalton reads as solidly American, a name at home in small towns and on class rosters without being either rustic or generic.