Skip to main content

Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German (Grüber) and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : 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 names randomly distributed by government officials.
  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : nickname from an inflected form of Yiddish dialect grub ‘rude, impolite’.

Subscribe to Family Education

Your partner in parenting from baby name inspiration to college planning.

Subscribe