2,427 Global GRIEVE Family Members

GRIEVE Family History

Recorded in several spellings including: Greave, Greeve, Grieve, Greaves, Greeves, and Greves, this is an English surname. It is either locational from the former hamlet of Greaves in the parish of Preston, Lancashire, or it is topographical from residence by a thicket or grove of trees. The word and hence the surname, derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "graefe" meaning brushwood, and is first recorded at the beginning of the 13th Century. Locational surnames are usually "from" names. These were names given to people after they left their original homes to move somewhere else, as an easy means of identification.