676 Global CHEETHAM Family Members

CHEETHAM Family History

This name is of Northern English locational origin from a place thus called in Lancashire. Recorded as Chetam in the 1212 Fine Court Rolls of that county and as Chetham in Lancashire Inquests dated 1226, the name derives from the British word "ceto", ultimately from the old Celtic "kaito", a forest, plus the old English pre 7th Century "ham" translating variously as "village, estate, manor or homestead"; hence, "settlement by the forest". The surname was first recorded in the mid 13th Century, (see below).