Gruber Family History

German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) (also Grüber): topographic name for someone who lived in a depression or hollow from (respectively) Middle High German gruobe German Grube ‘pit hollow’ + the suffix -er denoting an inhabitant. As a Jewish name it can also be one of the names randomly distributed by government officials.

This surname is also found in some other European countries for example in France (mainly Alsace), Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Croatia, and Slovenia sometimes as a translation into German of corresponding Slavic topographic names or surnames. In Hungary and Slovakia the surname is also spelled Grúber.

Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic): nickname from an inflected form of Yiddish dialect grub ‘rude impolite’. English: from Middle English grubbere ‘digger’.

However, it is not certain whether this name survived beyond the 17th century.