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’.