The origin of orbital magnetism recently observed in different nanostructured films and particles is discussed as a consequence of spin-orbit coupling. It is shown that contact potentials induced at the thin film surface by broken symmetries, as domain boundaries in self-assembled monolayers, lead to orbital states that in some cases are of large radius. The component of the angular momentum normal to the surface can reach very high values that decrease the total energy by decreasing spin-orbit interaction energy. Intraorbital ferromagnetic spin correlations induce orbital momenta alignment. The estimated values of the magnetic moments per atom are in good agreement with the experimental observations in thiol capped gold films and nanoparticles.