Family name origins & meanings
- Altered form of Russian Gerasimek : from a diminutive of the personal name Gerasim (Greek Gerasimos, a derivative of geras ‘old age’, or of the homonymous geras ‘honor’), which was borne by a 5th-century saint, venerated in the Eastern Church, who was chiefly famous for the devotion he is said to have inspired in a lion from whose paw he extracted a thorn.
- German : of disputed etymology; possibly of the same origin as 1 or from the bird name Grasmücke ‘warbler’.