This surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from any of the various places in the north of England named with the Olde English pre 7th Century "stan", stone, or its Old Norse cognate "steinn", and the Olde English "tun", enclosure, settlement; hence, "settlement on stony ground". These places include Stainton in Westmorland and Lancashire, recorded as "Steintun" in the Domesday Book of 1086; Stainton in Durham and Cumberland, appearing respectively as "Staynton", circa 1150 and as "Stainton" in the 1166 Pipe Rolls of Cumberland; and any of the various Staintons in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Locational surnames, such as this, were originally given to local landowners, and the lord of the manor, and especially as a means of identification to those who left their birthplace to settle elsewhere. Regional and dialectal differences subsequently gave rise to several versions of the original spelling, which in the modern idiom is found as: Stainton, Stanton, Stienton, Stenton and Stinton. One Thomas de Staynton was noted in the 1273 Poll Tax Returns of Yorkshire, and on February 9th 1543, Jenet Stainton, an infant, was christened in Monk Frystone, Yorkshire. On October 25th 1655 the marriage of Ellizabeth Stinton to Thomas Pratt took place at St. Margaret Pattens, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Herbert de Staynton, which was dated 1273, in the "Hundred Rolls of Lincolnshire", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.