Markham
A locational surname meaning “from Markham,” originally someone from a place-name built from Old English words for a boundary and a homestead or village.
The #2,741 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 23,502 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Markham is chiefly a locational surname from the English place-name Markham, especially the Nottinghamshire village. The name is usually explained from Old English mǣrc or mearc, meaning a boundary or border, plus hām, meaning a homestead, village, or estate. In older scholarship it is sometimes glossed as “boundary-land,” but the place-name sense is the safest modern summary.
History
The surname is recorded early in medieval English sources and was associated with the Nottinghamshire family of Markham. It spread as a hereditary surname from people who had moved away from the place-name or who were identified with its manor or estate. Later bearers carried the name into wider English-speaking regions, and it remains established in Britain and North America.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The form can look like a compound with the personal name Mark, but the surname is not originally about the given name Mark at all.
From the historical record
“each = Gael, marcaiche — marc, a horse] MARKHAM (Eng.) Bel. to Markham = the Mark- or Boundary- Land [O.E. m{e)arc + hamifri] MARKLAND (Eng.) Dweller at the Mark- or Boundary-Land [O.E. m{e)arc + land] MARKS \ I Mark's (Son) : v. Mark' MARX J 2 for Marcus, q.v. MARKSON, Mark's Son : v. Marki”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)