Frequency: (2293)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. English and Scottish: from Middle English crabbe, Old English crabba ‘crab’ (the crustacean), a nickname for someone with a peculiar gait.
2. English and Scottish: from Middle English crabbe ‘crab apple (tree)’ (probably of Old Norse origin), hence a topographic name for someone who lived by a crabapple tree. It may also have been a nickname for a cantankerous person, a sense which developed primarily from this word, with reference to the sourness of the fruit, but may also have been influenced by the awkward-seeming locomotion of the crustacean.
3. Americanized spelling of German, Dutch, and Danish Krabbe.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
