Elam
A surname most likely taken from a place-name, with an old English link to Elliam or Elham in Kent.
The #2,556 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 21,838 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The best-known explanation in the older surname books is that Elam represents a shortened or altered form of a Kent place-name, given as Eleham or Elliam, now usually associated with Elham in Kent. In this reading, the surname is locational: it identified someone who came from that place. The excerpt does not spell out the place-name’s deeper root, so that part should be treated cautiously.
History
The name appears in English surname collections as a relatively uncommon locational surname, and modern bearers likely descend from several small, unrelated family lines. Because the spelling is very close to the biblical name Elam, it may also have been influenced by that familiar word in later records. The historical evidence here is thin, so the place-name explanation is suggestive rather than certain.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same spelling also matches the ancient biblical name Elam, so the surname could sometimes have been reshaped by scriptural familiarity in later centuries.
From the historical record
“logous surnames. ELAM. Eleham, or Elliam, a parish in Kent. ELD. ELDE. ELDER. I think these names must be taken literally as relating to the advanced age of tlie original bearer, (A-Sax. ealil) especially as we have the cor- relatives Young and Younger. ELDRED. The extinct baronet family of Saxham, co. Sufiblk…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom