This is an early English medieval surname. It is locational and originates from the town of Mitcham in the county of Surrey. This place is first recorded in the earliest of all charters and gazetters known as the "Cartularium Saxonicum" in the year 675 a.d. The place name and hence the later surname means "The Great house" from the Old English words "michel" meaning great, and "ham", a house or farm. Locational surnames were usually "from" names. That is to say names given to people as easy identification, after they left their original homes and moved elsewhere. The alternative locational origin was when the surname identified the local lord of the manor, or his descendants. This may apply in this case as a Peter de Micham is recorded in the famous charters known as the Hundred Rolls, for the city of London, in the year 1273. Later examples taken from surviving registers of the diocese of Greater London include: Sarah Mitcham, who married Daniel Thorp at St Georges Chapel, Hanover Square, Westminster, in 1754, and Thomas Mitcham, who married Sarah Mash at the same church in 1763.

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