The name "Heaton" is first recorded in Registrum Cart. Conv. De Holne (circa A.D.1200) as Hactonam, later Heton juxta Castrum in the Lay Subsidy Rolls; A.D.1296.

Ekwall (Dictionary of English Place-names, 1936, 1960) gives the derivation from Old English heah tun - 'the high farm' or 'the high estate'.

heah is the Old English adjective 'high' and can refer to its position or its importance. The area called 'High Heaton' with its unintended tautology, was probably the original heah tun. Capheaton in Northumberland has a similar double meaning, 'Cap' coming from medieval Latin caput; 'chief.'

tun is the Old English word for an enclosure, a farm or an estate. The names ending in tun are held to belong to the period of Anglo-Saxon expansion from the 8th century AD and probably continued in use as a new element in names after the Norman Conquest.