English: habitational name from places in Cambridgeshire, Kent, Northumbria, and North Yorkshire; most are so named from Old English Ellingtun ‘settlement (Old English tun) associated with Ella’, a short form of the various compound names with a first element ælf ‘elf’, but the one in Kent has its first element from the Old English byname Ealda meaning ‘old’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4