Ham
A surname from a word for a homestead or village enclosure, often found in names tied to places.
The #2,133 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 18,183 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Ham comes from Old English hām, meaning 'homestead,' 'village,' or 'dwelling place.' In surname use, it often appears as a short local or topographic name taken from a place called Ham or from a settlement element meaning 'home.' Older writers also note it as a common component in many English place-names and family names.
History
Ham has long been used both as a standalone surname and as part of longer local surnames. It is especially common in England as a place-based name, and 19th-century surname writers remarked that it also appears widely in American records, sometimes in shortened or altered forms. Because many different places were called Ham, the surname may have several independent local origins.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A number of English surnames compress from longer place-names ending in -ham, and older surname books specifically pointed to Ham as a very common building block in English family names.
From the historical record
“HALY. See Hailey. HAM. A-Sax. Jidiii, a homestead, whence — B^" HAM, as a component syllable in many local family names : " In Ford, in flam, in Ley, in Ton, The most of English surnames nm." Professor Leo finds OG out of 1 ,200 place- names in the Codex Dipl., vols. i. & ii., (or nearly one-twelfth of all the names”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom