(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.
Short form: Dave.
Pet forms: Davy, Davey, Davie (mainly Scottish); Dai.
Cognates: Irish: Dáibhídh. Scottish Gaelic: Dàibhidh. Welsh: Dafydd, Dewi. German, Dutch: David. French: David. Spanish: David. Italian: Davide. Russian: David. Polish: Dawid. Czech: David. Finnish: Taavi. Hungarian: Dávid.
English (mainly southwestern England): variant spelling of Hamm.
French: habitational name from any of the various places in northern France (Ardennes, Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Moselle) named with the Germanic word ham ‘meadow in the bend of a river’, ‘water meadow’, ‘flood plain’.
Dutch: variant of Hamme.
Korean: there is only one Chinese character for the Ham surname. Some sources report that there are sixty different Ham clans, but only the Kangnŭng Ham clan can be documented. Although some records have been lost and a few generations are unaccounted for, it is known that the founding ancestor of the Ham clan is Ham Kyu, a Koryŏ general who fought against the Mongol invaders in the thirteenth century. His ancestor, Ham Hyŏk, was a Tang Chinese general who stayed in Korea after Tang China helped Shilla unify the peninsula during the seventh century. Another of Ham Hyŏk's ancestors, Ham Shin, accompanied Kim Chu-wŏn, the founding ancestor of the Kangnŭng Kim family, to the Kangnŭng area, and hence the Ham clan became the Kangnŭng Ham clan. The first prominent ancestor from Kangnŭng whose genealogy can be verified is Ham Kyu, the Koryŏ general. Accordingly, he is regarded as the Kangnŭng Ham clan's founding ancestor.
