Meanings
- A male given name from Old English.
1 more example
"Let me do one thing more for you," she said. "Let me rename you. How on earth did you ever get yourself called Dunstable?" "My mother's maiden name," said I. "Lots of people in Canada get landed with their mother's maiden name as a Christian name. But what's wrong with it?" "It's hard to say, for one thing," said she, "and it sounds like a cart rumbling over cobblestones. You'll never get anywhere in the world named Dumbledum Ramsay. Why don't you change it to Dunstan? St. Dunstan was a marvellous person and very much like you - mad about learning, terribly stiff and stern and scowly, and an absolute wizard at withstanding temptation.
1970, Robertson Davies, Fifth Business, →ISBN, pages 96–97 - A surname originating as a patronymic.
Origin
From the name of a 10th century Archbishop of Canterbury, from Old English dunn (“dark”) + stān (“stone”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Dunstan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Dunstan
“Dunstan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Dunstan. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Dunstan,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Dunstan.
Source: Dunstan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.