An English and German surname, Ham comes from the Old English terms ‘hamm’ and ‘hamme’ which referred to low-lying field near a stream. From the Hebrew term ‘ham’ it refers to heat. The spelling variations for Ham include Hamme, Hame and Hamm. In England the earliest Ham families lived in Sussex. Over the centuries the Hams surname has spread to all of the country in some of Wales. Those counties with the greatest populations of the Ham family name include all of the southwest; Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Glamorgan in Wales. There are large numbers also in the city of London, in Essex, Hampshire and Lancashire counties. The few scattered locations where the Ham families reside in Scotland are Caithness to the far north, then south to Lanarkshire, Kincardineshire, and Midlothian. Within the United States the original Ham families resided in Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Kentucky and Indiana. Famous and renowned people with the surname: Pete Ham (singer from Wales), James Richard Ham (an auxiliary bishop with the Roman Catholic Church in Minnesota), Ken Alfred Ham (evangelist and public speaker in Australia), Kenneth T. Ham (astronaut), Tibor Ham (well-known physician in Hungary) and Goldie Suttle Ham (female pioneer medical doctor in Texas in the 19th century).