Hammond
A common English surname that originally meant “son of Hamo” or “son of Hamon,” from a medieval personal name.
The #481 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 4,441 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Hammond is generally explained as a patronymic from the medieval personal name Hamo or Hamon, with the surname form later appearing as Hammond. The name Hamo is old, and Lower notes it as a well-known Domesday-era personal name. In some spellings, an extra d was added after -n-, so Hamon became Hammond by phonetic or scribal development.
History
The name was established in medieval England and persisted in several spellings, including Hamon and Hamond, alongside Hammond. Bardsley specifically treats Hammond as the son of Hamon and notes that Hamon was once a popular given name, though it later faded from common use. Hammond remains a frequent English and especially English-speaking surname today.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Nineteenth-century surname writers often grouped Hammond with examples like Simmonds and Jolland as a case where an extra consonant crept into the spelling over time.
From the historical record
“HAMMON. See Hammond. HAMMOND. Hamo is a well-known Domesd. personal name, which in later times assumed the form of Hamon, Hamond, Hammond. HAMOND. See Hammond. HAMP. As we have the local names Hampstead, Hampden, Hampsthwaite, &c., as well as the patronymical Hampson, this was probably an ancient personal name.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom