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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : habitational name from either of two places, one in Surrey, the other in Wiltshire. The former is named in Old English as ‘Imma’s enclosure’ (see Worth); the latter as ‘Imma’s lake’ (from mere ‘lake’, ‘pond’).
  • Jewish (Ashkenazic) : variant of Ingber, from Yiddish imber ‘ginger’.
  • German : nickname for an industrious person or metonymic occupational name for a beekeeper, from Middle High German imbe, imme ‘bee’.

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