Fortune Family History

English and French: nickname for a gambler or for someone considered fortunate or well favored, from Middle English, Old French fortune ‘chance’, ‘luck’. In some cases it may derive from the rare medieval personal name Fortune (Latin Fortunius). French (Fortuné): from the personal name Fortuné, a vernacular form of the Late Latin personal name Fortunatus meaning ‘prosperous’, ‘happy’. Scottish: habitational name from a place in Lothian, probably so named from Old English for ‘hog’, ‘pig’ + tun ‘settlement’, ‘enclosure’; John de Fortun was servant to the abbot of Kelso c. 1200.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press