According to the
Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, the modern name
Haimes originates in two different medieval names, which came to sound the same around the sixteenth century. In both cases, neither name originally ended in
-s; this was added later, sometimes perhaps as a
genitive case ending. The first is the personal name
Haim: its use as a second name originated to indicate that a person was a child of someone called Haim. The earliest attested forms of this name occur in
Old German, as
Haimo. This Old German name was borrowed into
Old French, including into the
Anglo-Norman dialect spoken in England, as
Haim,
Haimes (in the
nominative case), and
Haimon (in the
oblique case) — along with variant pronunciations and spellings, which became sources of English surnames like
Hame,
Haim,
Haime,
Haimes,
Hains,
Haines,
Hayns,
Haynes,
Hammon and
Hammond. The second source of the surname
Haimes is the common place-name
Hamm, which derives from the
Old English word
hamm, meaning 'land in a river bend', 'river meadow', 'marshy land'. ==Frequency==