Helms Coat of Arms and Surname Origin

There is no single Helms family crest for every bearer. Herald Lab researches the arms historically associated with the name and explains whose they were.

Family name meaning

Behind the Helms surname stands Helm, an English name that clerks and families wrote in more than one way. Surname dictionaries give the meaning as “A shelter-name”.

Helms adds a patronymic ending to Helm, marking ‘son of’ or ‘of the family of’. Spellings drifted because names were written down by ear in parish books, tax rolls and passenger lists. The 2010 census count for Helms in the United States was 23,949, good for rank 1,493. That puts it among the top 2,500 US surnames.

Research your Helms family history with a full surname report and painted coat of arms.