Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place in Hampshire, so called from an unexplained first element pop + Old English hām ‘homestead’.
- The Popham Colony was the first organized attempt to establish an English colony on the shores of what is now known as New England, then called Northern Virginia. George Popham of Hunstworth, Somerset, England, helped establish the colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River in 1607. It lasted for little over a year until it was abandoned in 1608. Although George died that same year, he may have had descendants or relatives with him as there are Pophams in the U.S. who trace their family roots to the colony.