English: habitational name from any of the numerous places so called. The final syllable represents Old English tun ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’. The first element has a wide variety of possible origins. In the case of three examples in Lincolnshire it is Old English hoh ‘spur of a hill’; for places in Oxfordshire and Somerset it is Old English halh ‘nook’, ‘recess’; for one in Dorset it may be Old English holh ‘hollow’, ‘depression’ or holt ‘small wood’; for a further pair in Suffolk it may be hola, genitive plural of holh ‘hollow’, but more probably a personal name Hola.