Where the Dixon name comes from

Dixon, along with its alternative form Dickson, began as a patronymic built from Dick with the ending -son. One line runs back to Thomas, son of Richard Keith, a man commonly called Dick, who took the surname Dickson to mean Dick's son or Richard's son. Richard came from the family of the Keiths, Earls Marischal of Scotland, and because the affix -son in the Lowlands answered the prefix Mac in the Highlands, Clan Dickson counts as a sept of Clan Keith. Thomas Dixon died in 1307 defending Douglas Castle against the English, a year after Robert the Bruce made him Castellan there, and he lies in the churchyard of St Brides, Douglas, under a marker showing him with a sword in one hand. The Dixon motto, Quod dixi dixi, translates as what I have said I have said.

A separate northern English line surfaces as Dikson in the Subsidy Rolls of Cumberland in 1332, and it appears to have no connection to the Scottish family.