Cherriman Family History

of uncertain origin. It looks like a compound of Cherry + man perhaps ‘one who sells cherries’ or ‘one who lives by a cherry tree’ or ‘servant of a man surnamed Cherry (see Cherry) but no medieval evidence for this surname has been found in Sussex or neighbouring counties.

A more substantial possibility is that Cherriman is a re-modelling by folk etymology of Char(e)man a Sussex surname since the late 14th century (see Charman). McKinley notes that in late 16th-century Horsham Cheryman appears as the surname of a man otherwise called Chyryam or Chyriam and that Cherian appears in late 16th-century Pullborough where Cherryman is recorded in the following century.

He proposes that Cherriman is an attempt to make sense of an otherwise unintelligible name. Redmonds suggests that this may be the Yorks family name Cherryholme (recorded as Cheriam in 1588) which could have migrated to Sussex.

Alternatively Chyriam and Cherian might themselves have been local pronunciations of Cheryman or Chareman in which -man has been reduced and metathesized to -am. For a possibly similar change see Holyome.