733 Global TRIBE Family Members

TRIBE Family History

This interesting and uncommon surname, with variant spellings Trybe, Tribb, Trebe, and Trubb, widely recorded in church registers of Sussex from the mid 16th Century is of Germanic origin, and as such, may be either a metonymic occupational name for a vine-grower, or a nickname. The derivation in the first instance is from the Middle High German "trube", (old High German "t(h)ruba"), a bunch of grapes, and in the second instance may be either the old German "trieb", force or impulse or "trub", gloomy, sad.