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The surname CLIFTON comes from old English roots, "Our "Cloughts" represent the narrow fissures betwixt the hills.  From the same root we owe our "Clives", "Cliffes", and "Clowes", not to mention our endless "Cliffords", "Clifton","Clevelands".  Any prominence of rock or earth was a "cop" or "cope" from Saxon "cop", a head.  Thus in the "Proverbs of Hending," is is said:  "When the coppe is fullest, then the hair is fairest."  
(Excerpt from the book English Surnames)

According to English history the CLIFTON name originated from a small village located near the town of Nottingham. The town was so named because of its location.

"Clifton of Clifton, Nottinghamshire
Created Baronet, May 22, 1611

Of this family, Gervafe Holles, Esq; a laborious antiquary, observes, that they took their surname for Clifton, a village about two miles distant from Nottingham, which, in its Saxon organs, signifies a village located upon a rock of shelving ground, as Sir W. Dugdale rightly observes, "and upon a prominence is this seated (yet in fertile soil) at the foot of which the Trent runs; where the Clifton have a noble seat, from which, ascending by many steps, we rest upon the top, in a fair bowling-green, that yields a most pleasant prospect, overlooking the Trent, the town of Nottingham, the vale of Belvoir, and part of the forest of Sherwood.  They derive them sevles from Alvaredus de Clifton, a Knight, said to be living in the time of William Perverell."
(Excerpt from the "Book of English Barons")

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