Chisholm

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name of Scottish origin carried by various notable people ; a place name given to a Minnesota town and a historic cattle route in the American West
2. A surname of Scottish descent borne by many individuals ; a geographic name applied to a Minnesota town and an old frontier cattle trail
3. A hereditary family name of Scottish origin shared by numerous people ; a name for a small Minnesota community and a famous nineteenth-century cattle trail

Etymology: Chisholm is a surname, and its origin lies in a place rather than a person. It is a Scottish habitational name, the kind given to someone who came from or lived by a particular piece of land. The first element is the Old English "ċīese", meaning "cheese", which here likely points to a settlement associated with cheese-making or dairy production, though the exact sense is uncertain. The second element is "holm", an Old English word for a piece of dry land in a fen, or else "helm", meaning a shed or barn. Either reading fits a farmstead on marshy or low-lying ground, so the name describes a homestead rather than a food. Put together, the sense is roughly "cheese place" or "dairy farm by the dry land," a name a family could carry with them from the place they came from.