Odem Surname Meaning & Coat of Arms

The spelling Odem grew out of Odom, an English surname with a long paper trail. The name is generally explained as “Son-in-law”. Before spelling was fixed, Odom was also written Odem. Regional accents shaped spellings long before dictionaries fixed them. The same family of names includes Odam and Odum.

The Census Bureau's 2010 surname file lists Odem with 810 bearers, at rank 29,231. That is enough to place it in the top 50,000 American surnames.

Arms linked to Odom and its spellings were granted to individual families; our heraldry team traces which line they belonged to. For the full story, order the Odem surname pack.