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Etymology •
& Meaning •
Hebrew •
Greek •
Bible •
Names •
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Meaning and etymology of the name Adoniram
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Adoniram 
There's only one Adoniam in the Bible but there's something noteworthy curious about him, or rather his name. Adoniam, son of Abda, is the oberführer of the men subject to forced labor during the time of king Solomon (1 Kings 4:6, 5:14). This ties him directly to the building of the temple because even though the temple was so holy that it was to be build without making noise (without using proper tools - 1 Kings 6:7), it was earthly enough to necessitate the abuse of myriads of slaves. Many of these slaves were levied from the Israelite households that owned them (1 Kings 5:13), but a great many more were drawn from the indigenous peoples of Canaan (9:20-22).
What is curious about this Adoniam is that when we are introduced to him - in 2 Samuel 20:24, when he's still working for David - he's called  (Adoram). The difference between Adoram and Adoniam is so large that commentators speak of a corrupted contraction; they really mean different things. The obvious solution is to propose that Adoram the slave driver who worked for David is not the same as Adoniam the slave driver who worked for Solomon.
However, there's a third slave driver, and he works for king Rehoboam, the son of Solomon (2 Chronicles 10:18). Young Rehoboam is not very diplomatic and in his early reign he wildly promises to wield the whip much fierecer than his father ever did - namely via his slave driver, we may assume. This causes the northern tribes to follow the rebel Jeroboam in secession, and to counteract this, Rehoboam sends in slave driver number three, called  (Hadoram). The only difference between the names Hadoram and Adoram is that the letter aleph of Adoram is now the he of Hadoram. Alternation between the letters aleph and the letter he is common enough for Adoram and Hadoram to be the same person. But certainty about this is too tall an order.
Whoever he is, when Hadoram arrives on the scene, the tribes successively stone him to death and thus ends an either very short or very long career.
Adoniam, Adoram and Hadoram may be the same person. Solomon reigned for forty years (1 Kings 11:42), so it's possible that Adoram started as a young man in service of David, and came to his end shortly after Solomon's death, while his name shape-shifted a bit, or rather a lot. But it's also possible that the three are different men. Only of Adoniam we know his father's name.
BDB Theological Dictionary rules them all the same person, and the confusion due to scribal error and textual corruption. Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) doesn't even treat Adoram separately and refers without further note to Adoniam, but he does treat Hadoram, because that name is shared with two other men. NIV doesn't print the other two names and speaks only of Adoniram. NAS properly reads Adoram in 2 Samuel and Hadoram in 2 Chronciles and Adoniam in 1 Kings.
The name Adoniam consists of two elements.
1) The first element is the word adoni, which means lord of, or my lord. See for an extensive treatment of adoni, and for other names containing this word, the name Adonai.
For a meaning of the name Adoniram, NOBS Study Bible Name List and BDB Theological Dictionary both read My Lord Is Exalted. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names proposes has Lord Of Height.
Other names derived of the verb rum are
Abram,
Abiram,
Ahiram,
Amram,
Aram,
Armageddon,
Armoni,
Hadoram,
Hiram,
Jarmuth,
Jehoram,
Jeremai,
Jeremiah,
Jeremoth,
Jerimoth,
Joram,
Paddam-aram,
Reumah,
Rumah,
Ram,
Ramah,
Ramath,
Ramathite,
Ramath-lehi,
Ramoth,
Ramathaim-zophim and
Romamti-ezer.
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