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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : habitational name from places in Derbyshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, so named from Old English nēd ‘need’, ‘hardship’ + hām ‘homestead’, i.e. a place that provided a poor living.
  • Irish (County Mayo) : English surname adopted as an equivalent of Irish Ó Niadh (see Nee).
  • English explorer James Needham carried the name to the southern Carolina settlement, arriving from Barbados in 1670 as a young man.

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