Nam
A rare surname that may sometimes be a shortened or altered form of a place-name surname ending in -ham, though the evidence is thin.
The #5,569 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 49,447 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The historical material offered here does not provide a clear direct entry for Nam itself. One older English surname writer notes that endings like -nam and -num can arise from shortened or altered forms of place-names ending in -ham, especially when an earlier n was preserved or the spelling shifted over time. On that basis, Nam is best treated as an uncertain surname form, possibly developed through abbreviation or spelling loss from a longer English name rather than from a simple standalone word.
History
The excerpted sources do not document a specific family line or a well-attested medieval origin for Nam. The name does appear in modern U.S. records, but the surname is uncommon enough that many bearers may have independent origins, including non-English ones not covered by these sources. Because the historical evidence here is indirect, any single explanation should be treated cautiously.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In older surname studies, names ending in -nam were sometimes grouped with forms like Putnam and Hannum as altered descendants of -ham place-names.
From the historical record
“or Oughtibridge (W., Yotks) [the first element is doubtless the pers. name seen in the Cumberland place-nam^Oughterby, viz. the Anglicized form, Ohthere, of the O.N. OftAar: V. Otter (A.-Scand.). (The Irish place-name component Oughter- is the Ir. uachdar, upper]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)