The name "Kenton" is first recorded in an early Assize Roll (A.D.1255) as Kynon and Quenton.

Ekwall (Dictionary of English Place-names, 1936, 1960) gives the derivation from Old English cyne tun - 'the royal farm' or cyning tun- 'the king's farm'.

cyne is the Old English adjective 'royal'.

cyning is the Old English word for a king.

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.