Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from places called Bellingham, in Greater London (formerly in Kent) and Northumberland. The former is named with Old English Beringahām ‘homestead (Old English hām) of the followers of Be(o)ra’, a byname meaning ‘bear’; the latter seems to have been originally named as the ‘homestead of the dwellers at the bell’, from Old English belle used in a transferred sense of a bell-shaped hill.
- Richard Bellingham (c.1592–1672) came from Boston, Lincolnshire, England, to Boston, MA, in 1634. He was a controversial political figure in the new colony, an opponent of John Winthrop. He was elected governor of MA in 1641 and again in 1654 and 1665–72.