This is one of those very difficult surnames which appear in different countries, sometimes in the same spellings, but with totally different meanings and origins. Recorded in the spellings of Shama and Shama, which are usually Muslim, and as Sharmah, Shurmah and Scirmar, which are usually English, the meanings are as follows. The Muslim name is believed to mean 'the flame of a candle', and may have derived from the word 'shams' meaning sun. Fixed spelling Muslim surnames are a relatively new hereditary form, and recordings are too reecent to have any historical basis. Previously like names of Wales and Scandanavia for instance, and before about 1860, Italy, the spelling changed form, if not the basic meaning, with each generation. Western influence and particulary the coming of the telephone and the telephone directory, has tended to create change, even if in this case the change is not to change. The recordings in England are much older. They are locational and derive from a place called 'Shermore' or similar, a now 'lost' medieval village believed to have been in the famous region known as 'Sherwood Forest'. 'Lost' villages are a feature of English surname listings, some five thousand surname originating from thse sources. In this case examples of surnae recordings include Xpian Shermore, a witness at St Olaves church, in the city of London, on October 15th 1586, and Martha Sharmah, the daughter of Ephraim Sharmah, at St Dunstans, Stepney, on March 31st 1726.

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