The following information is taken from the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, available online at http://www.dsl.ac.uk/index.html. This is a work in progress.
| Spelling | Number | Dates & headers |
|---|---|---|
| Houstoun | 3 | 1557-8 (bastailȝe); 1630 (bosting, complent) |
| Howston | 2 | 1531 (chaplanry); 1597 (apperant) |
| Houston | 1 | 1598 (circumduce) |