Frequency: (1399)
(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: nickname for a fierce or cruel man, from Middle English grill(e) ‘angry’, ‘vicious’ (from Old English gryllan ‘to rage’, ‘to gnash the teeth’; compare 4).
2. German: nickname for a cheerful person, from Middle High German grille ‘cricket’ (Old High German grillo, from Late Latin grillus, Greek gryllos). The insect is widely supposed to be of a cheerful disposition, no doubt because of its habit of infesting hearths and warm places. The vocabulary word is confined largely to southern Germany and Austria, and it is in this region that the surname is most frequent.
3. German: habitational name from any of eight places in Upper Bavaria and Austria, perhaps so named from Middle High German grille ‘cricket’.
4. North German: nickname for an angry man from Middle Low German grellen ‘to be furious’, ‘to shriek’. Compare 1.
GIVEN NAMES: German 5%. Erwin (4), Franz (2), Otto (2), Alois, Bernhard, Ernst, Gerhard, Hermann, Klaus, Konrad, Manfred, Monika.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
