Given name & surname · also Old English
Durham
“islet, island”
Durham is a surname from Old English, ultimately from Old Norse.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Durham goes back to Old Norse holm, meaning “islet, island.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Durham comes from Old English, and ultimately from Old Norse.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Old English Dūnholm, from Old Norse holm (“islet, island”).
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1915. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Durham through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 309
- 309 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2009
- 19 babies
- 2025
- 6
- #11,018 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +31%
- Rising
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 6 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 11,018 among boys’ names. The recent annual counts are too incomplete to establish a ten-year comparison. Its largest published annual count for boys was 19 in 2009. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 294 as a first name in 2020; 41,287 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.
Durham’s family of names
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
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If you love Durham, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
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