Family name origins & meanings
- German (Böhm) and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ethnic name for a native or inhabitant of Bohemia: see Boehm.
- North German : from Middle Low German bōm ‘tree’, hence a topographic name for someone who lived by a particularly conspicuous tree, a habitational name for someone who lived at a house distinguished by the sign of a tree, or perhaps in some cases a metonymic occupational name for someone who tended trees. This is also found as a Swedish surname.