The main centre is known from 1250 onwards and could then well have been held by the Counts of Leiningen. The ending "—heim" points to a Frankish origin, but there is no written evidence for this. A local nobleman named "Ulricus de Obernkeim" was mentioned in 1352 in a decree from the council of the Imperial City of Speyer; he might have been from Obrigheim. The Weißenburg Monastery, in what is now Wissembourg in nearby Alsace, France, enfeoffed Count Friedrich VII of Leiningen-Dagsburg with holdings in Obrigheim. From 1467 to 1505, the village found itself in Electoral Palatinate’s ownership. In 1557 it was called "Oberkum uff der wissen". This almost matches the village’s local dialectal name "Owwerkumm". On a map from 1735 it is called "Oberheim"; in 1739, the name that is today customary first crops up.