Maitland is an English and Scottish surname. It arrived in Britain after the Norman conquest of 1066. There are two theories about its source. It is either a nickname reference to “bad temper/disposition” (Old French, Maltalent; Anglo Norman French, mautalent/Mautalen; Latin malum talentum), or it may be a locational reference to Mautalant, a place in Pontorson, France. The Brittany connection is less likely than that with Les Moitiers-d’Allonne, near Carteret in the Cotentin. Mautalents continue to live in and near Les Moitiers-d’Allonne, and the early medieval charters link the Maltalents of England and Scotland with the Morville family – originating from Morville, near Valonges, and Roger de Mowbray, whose family came from Aubigny, also nearby. The name gradually mutated to Mautalent and then Maitland, with the latter spelling appearing around 1250 and becoming settled in the late 14th century.

The earliest public record of the surname in Britain, after the Battle Abbey Roll of 1066, dates to 1138 in Northumberland when Robert Maltalent witnessed a charter of Roger de Mowbray in Yorkshire.[1]