Hamlet. Grouping of homes with neither a local church nor an organized local jurisdiction. The hamlet depends, in both respects, upon a village or an enclosed city; the word comes from hamellus , a term used by late Latin authors and is a diminutive of ham. This word ham , which signifies house , habitation , can be found as the suffix of a great number of geographic proper nouns, especially in England, where we see Buckingham, Nottingham, Grandham, etc .; even though many of these names belong today to villages, cities, and provinces, they began as hamlets . Similarly in German this syllable is replaced with heim , as in Mannheim, Germersheim, Hildesheim, etc ., and sometimes as hain. This noun ham is recognizable not only in the French word hameau , but again in many other names, such as Estreham, which derives from Oistréham, for Westerham , which means occidental dwelling, and thereby marks the location of the place, which is on the west of the mouth of the Orne. In Normandy we commonly change the syllable ham into hom , like Le Hommet, Robehomme, Brethomme; these last two are called in Latin Roberti villa, Britonica villa. A place that was only a simple hamlet became a village or a city without changing its name. Indeed, all the great empires started as hamlets, all the great naval powers with fishing boats.