Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place in Greater Manchester called Pemberton, from Celtic penn ‘hill’, ‘head’ + Old English bere ‘barley’ + tūn ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’.
- There seem to have been several families called de Pemberton in the Wigan area of Manchester, England, as early as the beginning of the 13th century, notably that of Adam de Pemberton, a substantial landowner Three Quaker brothers named Pemberton were born in Philadelphia: Israel (b. 1715), James (b. 1723), and John (b. 1727); Israel and James became wealthy merchants and philanthropists.