Family name origins & meanings
- English : ethnic name for someone from Prussia, Middle English Spruce, Sprewse. Compare German Preuss. The adjective spruce ‘neat’, ‘dapper’, which probably derives from an attributive use of the name of the country, is not recorded until the late 16th century, too late for it to be a likely source of the surname. The tree (earlier called spruce fir) has likewise only come to be known by this name in the last couple of centuries.