Family name origins & meanings
- English (Northumberland) : topographic name for someone who lived by a stream among lush pastures, from Middle English grene ‘green’ + welle ‘spring’, ‘stream’, or habitational name from a minor place so named.
- The main English family of this name came originally from Greenwell, Wolsingham, County Durham, where they are recorded as owning land as early as 1183.