According to a number of early sources, Staten Island was known as Stratton or Stratton's Island. This information remains unconfirmed by contemporary documentation.

The author, Gene Stratton-Porter, describes her ancestry in the book, At the Foot of the Rainbow, as follows:

The author's father was descended from a long line of ancestors of British blood. he was named for, and traced his origin to, that first Mark Stratton who lived in New York, married the famous beauty, Anne Hutchinson, and settled on Stratton Island, afterward corrupted to Staten, according to family tradition. From that point back for generations across the sea he followed his line to the family of Strattons of which the Earl of Northbrooke is the present head. To his British traditions and the customs of his family, Mark Stratton clung with rigid tenacity, never swerving from his course a particle under the influence of environment or association. All his ideas were clear-cut; no man could influence him against his better judgment. He believed in God, in courtesy, in honour, and cleanliness, in beauty, and in education. He used to say that he would rather see a child of his the author of a book of which he could be proud, than on the throne of England, which was the strongest way he knew to express himself.

An alternative perspective is expressed by William Frederick Stratton of Washington State. In June 2011 he wrote: "I have done quite a bit of research into the Strattons in America and can find no evidence that Staten Island was ever Stratton Island in any form of spelling. In fact the evidence is contrary to that notion. Staten Island was named directly by the Dutch in that area.

"I did find however that Stratton Island, Maine was settled and named quite early (late 1600s) by Strattons from the New England colony who moved and lived in New York for several generations in the 1700s-1800s. I believe that the island story was a simple error in where the island was located. My mother, born 1902, told that Staten Island story along with a story about GSPorter's relationship to my father and her husband, Frederick Nelson Stratton until she died in 2000, so it was apparently quite deeply buried in Stratton lore."

Any additional information and documentation on this issue would be appreciated.