The traditional account of the family's origin traces them back to Hiallt, a 10th-century Norseman who settled in the Cotentin Peninsula and founded the estate of "Hialtus villa", giving rise in corrupted form to the family toponymic "Hauteville". The name represents the Scandinavian "Hjalti" or "Hialti"), but may instead have resulted from confusion with the "Helt" found in "Heltvilla", modern Héauville. Alternatively, the eponymous Hiallt may be legendary: Hauteville ("Altavilla") means simply "high estate". Of several villages with the name "Hauteville", the one from which the family derived its name is hard to identify with certainty, though modern scholarship favours Hauteville-la-Guichard, but there is no proof that allows to connect the related knight Robert Guiscard with this village. "Guiscard" refers more probably to a Guichard de Montfort.