A man hiding his forename (maybe Hiram or Elmer?) (8)
I believe the answer is:
american
'a man hiding his forename maybe hiram or elmer?' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'a man hiding his forename' is the wordplay.
'hiding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'his forename' becomes 'eric' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'man' going around 'eric' is 'merican'.
'a'+'merican'='AMERICAN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for american that I've seen before include "Main race (anag.)" , "Eric, a man (anag.)" , "Beauty of Film" , "Film starring Kevin Spacey" , "Nationality of Yankee Doodle Dandy" .)