OXENHAM Family History

This interesting and unusual surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from Oxenham (Manor), near South Tawton in Devonshire. The component elements of the placename are the Olde English pre 7th Century "oxan", oxen, with "ham(m)", translating variously as "meadow", especially a flat low-lying meadow on a stream, also, "an enclosed plot, a close". Locational surnames were originally given to local landowners, and the lord of the manor, and especially to those former inhabitants who left heir place of origin to live and work in another area.