Family name origins & meanings
- German (Böhm), Dutch, and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ethnic name for a native or inhabitant of Bohemia (now the western part of the Czech Republic), from Böhmen, German name of Bohemia (Middle High German Böheim, Bēheim). This derives its name from the tribal name Baii + heim ‘homeland’; the Baii were a tribe, probably Celtic, who inhabited the region in the 1st century ad and were gradually displaced by Slavic settlers in the period up to the 5th century. The same tribe also gave their name to Bavaria (see Bayer). Bohemia was an independent Slavic kingdom from the 7th century to 1526, when it fell to the Habsburgs. In 1627 it was formally declared a Habsburg Crown Land, and by the Treaty of Versailles it became a province of the newly formed Czechoslovakia in 1919.