Where the Simpson name comes from

Simpson is a patronymic surname, formed from Sim, the short form of Simon, with the suffix -son to mark the son of a man who bore that name. In Middle English it was written Sympson, and the spelling Simson survives as an alternative form. The given name behind it was Simme, a medieval variant of Simon, and the surname belongs to both England and Scotland. The earliest public record of the name comes from Staffordshire, England, in 1353.

As a patronymic the name is Scottish and northern English. It has a second, unrelated origin in the south west: an English habitational surname for someone who lived in any of several places in Devon that carried the name.