An English surname, Shepard comes from the Old English terms of ‘sceap’, ‘scip’, hierde, ‘heord’ and ‘weard’ which all refer to guarding and the herding of sheep The spelling variations for Shepard include Shepherd, Shepeard, Shippard, Shephard, Shepperd and Sheppard. In England the family name of Shepard is scattered across England and southern end of Wales. In Yorkshire, Lancashire, the city of London, Hampshire and Worcestershire have the greater Shepard populations. In Scotland the counties with the most Shepard families include Angus, Lanarkshire, Midlothian, Aberdeenshire and Ross & Cromarty. Within the United States the earliest Shepard families lived in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Ohio, Virginia and Maryland. Famous: Alan Shepard (astronaut - first American in space), Lucius Shepard (science fiction writer), Sam Shepard (actor and playwright), Thomas Z. Shepard (music and record producer), Bert Shepard (professional baseball player), E. H. Shepard (English artist and illustrator) and Thomas Shepard (early 17th century Puritan who came to the Plymouth colony).