Grave Family History

English: occupational name from Middle English grayve grayve greve ‘steward bailiff manorial officer who managed the lord's demesne farm headman of a town or village’ a borrowing from Old Norse greifi ‘earl count’. Compare the synonymous Grieve and Reeve.

English: topographic name from Middle English grave ‘pit’ (Old English græf). English: in Norfolk possibly from the rare Middle English personal name Gre(y)vy Gre(i)ve Old Norse Greifi Grefe originally a nickname meaning ‘earl count’ (see 1 above).

North German (also Gräve) Dutch Flemish and northern French: variant of German Graf ‘count’ or its Dutch cognate De Graaf or a topographic name from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch grave ‘ditch moat channel’ or a habitational name from any of several places in northern Germany and the Netherlands named with this word.

Compare De Grave Graeve and Greve. French (southern): topographic name for someone who lived on a patch of gravelly soil from Old French grave ‘gravel’ (from Latin grava) or a habitational name from any of several places called with this word.