Sprout Family History

Dutch: from Middle Dutch sprute ‘sprout shoot’ either a nickname for a young or delicate person or possibly in the sense of ‘offshoot descendant’ a nickname for someone linked by birth to a distinguished local family.

English (Lancashire): from Middle English sprout ‘(new) shoot of a plant bud’ perhaps a nickname given to a small thin (young?) person.

It may have been used interchangeably with Sprott and Sproat either because the medieval sense was similar or because with a different pronunciation it was an altered form of Sproat.