Herb
A surname that may come from a given name or a word for the harvest season, though the evidence is mixed.
The #9,854 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 94,072 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Herb is not fully secure in the old dictionaries. One line of explanation connects it with Germanic personal-name forms built on the element hari/heri, meaning "army," with Herb as a shortened form of such names. Another possibility, suggested by later Germanic name collections, links it to the German word Herbst, "harvest" or "autumn," though that fits the spelling less directly. Because the historical evidence is thin and the surname can be short for several different names, a single definite origin should be stated cautiously.
History
The form appears in German-language surname collections as a clipped or shortened name, and related spellings such as Herbo, Herpp, and Herbich are noted in older onomastic works. In English-speaking countries it is comparatively uncommon and may also have been reinforced by immigration from German-speaking regions. The name should not be confused with the common noun herb, since the etymological trail points elsewhere in most surname studies.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In older surname discussions, Herb is sometimes grouped with names built from the Germanic root for "army," which is a very different origin from the garden plant.
From the historical record
“TIMEWELL (Eng.) The first element is hardly the herb-name 'thyme', and it is prob. for ' timber' [O.E. timber, timber, a building], the whole name denoting a timber-roofed well. TIMIN = Tim(m), q.v.+the Fr. dim. suff'. -in.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)