Plumb
Usually a name for someone living by a plum tree, though some examples may also reflect the surname Plum with an inserted b.
The #7,601 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 70,619 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is generally explained from Old English and later French-Latin words for the plum tree or plum, especially in the sense of someone living near a plum tree. Some 19th-century sources also treat Plumb as a variant of Plum, with the -b added later as an intrusive consonant rather than part of the original name. In that view, the core meaning stays the same: a topographic name tied to a plum tree or place marked by one.
History
The name appears in English records in medieval forms such as Plumbe and Plumbe/Plumb, and later remained as a spelling variant alongside Plum and Plume. Genealogical dictionaries often note that the -b spelling is secondary, which helps explain why the surname is relatively uncommon but persistent in England and later in the United States. Modern bearers are likely descended from several local surname lines rather than one single family.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Several old surname handbooks explicitly call the -b in Plumb “excrescent,” meaning it was added into the spelling rather than inherited from the original root.
From the historical record
“PLUM PLUMB PLUMBE PLUME / (Eng.) Dweller by a Plum-Trke [O.E. plume] (Fr.-Lat.) a nickname, or trade-name,”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)