Werth
A German surname usually linked to a place name or the old word for a river island, meadow, or enclosed land near water.
The #8,728 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 82,179 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is most commonly treated as a German locational name from a place called Werth, or from Middle High German/Low German words such as werth, werd, or wert meaning a river island, riverside meadow, or raised piece of land near water. In older naming practice, someone who came from such a place could be called "aus dem Werd" or simply "Werth." The underlying sense is therefore "the person from the Werd/Werth place."
History
The excerpts show the name being explained as a shortened form of older locative phrases like "aus dem Werd," and also as a surname formed from a settlement or manor name. This fits a wider German pattern in which people from a specific village or landscape feature were identified by that place-name and later fixed as a hereditary surname. The spelling Werth is especially found in German-speaking areas and in families that later dropped the preposition or article.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One of the excerpts notes a Detmold family that formerly wrote the name as "aus dem Werd" before shortening it simply to Werth.
From the historical record
“name is ancient in Sussex. Robertus de Wyrche occurs in a deed of 6. Edward II. Tlie manor of Worth or Werth, in the parishes of Brightling and Bnrwash, be- came Wercke, and the lands of which it was composed are now known as Great and Little Worgo. See Duke's Life of Major- Gen. Worge, 1844.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom