Family name origins & meanings
- German : topographic name for someone living on a sandy site, from Middle High German griez ‘sand’ + Middle Low German hōp ‘heap’, ‘pile’. (Phonologically mixed forms occur in certain dialect areas, e.g. in the Rhineland and in later settlement areas east of the Elbe, due to the geographically uneven consonant changes of the second or Old High German sound shift.)