The Dohme Family of Ohio
I grew up with this name, and
I was often teased about it. My branch of the Dohme family pronounces this name with a long "e", so you can imagine the teasing I had to endure. When I was
younger, I hated it, and all through school, it was almost embarrassing having to correct my teachers on how my name was pronounced.
I have often wondered where my name came from, if this was the original pronunciation, and what does it mean? In the book, "The Dohme Family 1244-1986", written by Frances Dohme Cockey, she mentioned that our name was probably derived from a German word, "thum", meaning "thumb", and that the original name was probably "Thum". Another explanation, which makes more sense to me, is that our name was derived from a German word, "dome", meaning "cathedral". This would indicate that our earliest ancestors lived near a cathedral, and when their government required surnames to be used, our ancestors chose one that described where they were living. There was another source online, that indicated this to be the case, and that variations in spelling were Dohm, Dohman, and Dohmer, and that the Dohme spelling was a variant of the name "Thomas".
My grandfather was Elmer Abraham Dohme. He was the son of August Edward Dohme and Charlotta Louisa Russ, and he was born and raised in the Cincinnati area in Hamilton County, Ohio. Elmer married my grandmother, Ida Annabelle Smith, whose family originally came from Hawkins County, Tennessee. She was the daughter of James Frank Smith and Martha Mae Simmons.