# Oldham (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/oldham/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A habitational surname from toponymy.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 12,928 |
| US rank (2010) | 2,792 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 23,882 people |
| Change since 2000 | +1.4% (12,753 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /ɒldəm/, 2 syllables |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

Recorded as Aldehulme in the Domesday Book, the English toponym is named with Old English eald (“old”) + Old Norse holmr (“holm, islet”). Or else, the first element may be Old English Alda, a male given name, or the Cumbric/Proto-Brythonic equivalent of Welsh allt (“cliff”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Oldham in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 86% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 8.9% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.2% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.5% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.7% |
| Two or more races | 1.8% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Oldham in the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

## People named Oldham

- Will Oldham, American singer-songwriter and actor
- Jawann Oldham, American basketball player (1957–2026)
- William Kavanaugh Oldham, American politician (1865-1938)
- Spooner Oldham, American songwriter and session musician
- Thomas Oldham, Anglo-Irish geologist, director of the Indian Geological Survey (1850-1876)
- Joyce Appleby, American historian (1929-2016)

## Similar surnames

Oldenburg, Olden, Oltman.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.