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’.