Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place in Leicestershire, recorded in Domesday Book as Merdegrave. The original name derived from Old English mearð ‘marten’ + grāf ‘grove’, but after the Norman Conquest the first element was taken to be Old French merde ‘dung’, ‘filth’, and changed to Old French beu, bel ‘fair’, ‘lovely’, to remove the unpleasant association. A mid 12th-century writer refers to the place as ‘Merthegrave, nunc (now) Belegrava’.