Grube
A surname usually linked to German and related names meaning “pit,” “ditch,” or a place in or by a hollow or excavation.
The #7,270 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 67,353 Americans shares it.
Etymology
In German, Grube means “pit,” “hole,” or “ditch,” and the surname can arise from a place-name or a person identified with such a feature. Some historical references also treat it as a name from a locality in northern Germany, while others connect it more generally with the word for a pit or excavation. In English records it sometimes appears as a German immigrant surname, with spellings like Grubbe or Groube.
History
The name is documented in older English and German surname collections as a German form, and one cited family tradition says the Grubbe family came from Germany in the 15th century. In the United States, Grube appears among later immigrant-descended families and is sometimes noted as a softened or variant form of Grubb. Because the same spelling can reflect either a place-based surname or a descriptive topographic one, the exact origin may vary by family line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
German surname writers sometimes gloss Grube simply as “pit,” showing how a very ordinary landscape word could become a hereditary family name.
From the historical record
“Burke's Landed Gentry says, * The family of Grubbe, spelt in the old registers Grube or Groube, migrated from Germany about the year 1430, aAer the Hussite persecutions, and subsequently settled at flastwell, in the parish of Potteme, co. Wilts, where thej' have ever since re-”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (alternate scan)