Meaning & origin
What it means
Burnham goes back to Old English burna, meaning “stream.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1912. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Burnham through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 130
- 130 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1918
- 15 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 5 in 1951. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 15 in 1918. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 96 as a first name in 2020; 15,147 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Burnham’s family of names
In English usage, Burnham as a surname shares an earlier linguistic root with BURNAM.
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Burnham
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Burnham, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
Belford
“bell; bell-shaped hill”
>99% boys
Needham
“need, necessity”
>99% boys
Bedford
Bedford is a surname from Middle English, ultimately from Old English.
>99% boys
Berwick
“barley”
>99% boys
Burton
“from the fortified town”
>99% boys
Upshur
Upshur is a surname from Old English.
>99% boys
Buck
“resembling a male deer”
>99% boys
Errett
“prosperity” · “advice, wisdom”
>99% boys