Where’s The -Ham?

The other day we drove through Bowdoinham and Topsham, and this summer we’ll be staying in Shoreham and living in Durham, all of which led me to wonder: whatever happened to the linguistic gesture of naming municipalities with the “-ham” suffix? “-Ville” and “-Ton/-Town” still do all right, but I don’t recall any civic entity recently naming itself a “-ham.” Where did they go?

4 thoughts on “Where’s The -Ham?

  1. I have another question. Why is it that newscasters, sportscasters and regular Joe/janes say NEW haven, rather than new HAVEN. It drives me nuts, specially since they have no trouble with New York!

    The 60 minutes program last night in the segment on Dubai used enormity when he meant enormousness twice, Grumble, grumble!

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