East Carleton's name is of Anglo-Saxon and Viking origin and derives from an amalgamation of the Old English and Old Norse for the settlement or farmstead of the freemen.

[1] In the Domesday Book, East Carleton is listed as a settlement of 58 households in the hundred of Humbleyard.

[2] The village has good examples of surviving Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Nineteenth Century residential architecture.

[4] East Carleton's parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary and is Medieval in origin.

The village's national constituency is South Norfolk which has been represented by the Labour's Ben Goldsborough MP since 2024.