Family name origins & meanings
- English and German : from the female personal name Imma, Emma or (in the case of the German name) from the male equivalent, Immo, short forms of various Germanic personal names formed with irmin, ermen ‘whole’, ‘entire’ as the first element (also the name of a Germanic deity). In Old English Imma, Emma was borne by both males and females. Compare Imber, but in Middle English, under Norman influence, it came to be used almost exclusively for women, being taken as a short form of Ermingard.