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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : probably a variant of Grein, Grain, a topographic name for someone who lived by an inlet or at the fork of a river, Middle English greine, grayne.
  • Altered spelling of German Grein.
  • Possibly an Americanized form of Norwegian Grini, a common habitational name from any of numerous farmsteads in southeastern Norway named Grini, from Old Norse grǫnvin, a compound of grǫn ‘spruce’ + vin ‘meadow’.

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