'Kenton' probably means the farm of a man called Coena and his family.
It joins the Saxon personal name Coena to Old English tūn, a farm. The hamlet is first recorded as Keninton in 1231 or 1232 (sources differ); the modern spelling appears in 1596. Kenton probably began as a Saxon settlement in a forest clearing, near a prehistoric track that is now Honeypot Lane.