Genesis 5:32 names him as the second son of No'ach and the father of the Chamites, usually reckoned to be the African tribes of Mitsrayim (Egypt) and always mispronounced in English as though there were a Hey (ה) first letter and not a Chet (ח): Ham. That would be considered treyf.
From the root Chamam (חמם) in Yehudit, meaning "to be hot". Ethiopic and Greek roots make Cham either "father-in-law" or "son-in-law"; in Egyptian the word is connected with heat, as it is in Yehudit. Cf Psalms 78:51; 105:23/27 and 106:22.
Cham, or actually Chem, was specifically a name for Egypt amongst the Egyptians themselves; both Coptic and Sahidic tongues to this day use terms meaning "blackness" or "heat" for Egypt, and the Rosetta Inscription has Cham on ten occasions for Egypt. The word Chemistry derives from it - al-Chimiya in the Arabic = الكيمياء
The Biblical division of the world into racial stereotypes and universal generalisations has the Chamites, as above, the Beney Shem or Semites for anyone in or to the east of Yisra-El, and Beney Yaphet, or Japhethites, for anyone north or west of Yisra-El.
Genesis 38:13 offers an alternative meaning for CHAM: "VA YUGAD LE TAMAR LEMOR HINEH CHAMICH OLEH TIMNATAH LAGOZ TSONO - and it was told to Tamar saying, 'Behold, your father-in-law has gone up to Timnah to shear his sheep.' CHAMICH being "CHAM for "father-in-law" and the ICH ending providing the feminine possessive.
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