Cruise
An Irish surname most often linked to a Norman family that settled in Ireland, though some older sources treat it as a variant of Crewe/Crews.
The #9,794 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 93,389 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Cruise is usually explained in Irish genealogical sources as coming from a Norman family who settled in Cornwall after the Conquest and later became established in Ireland. On that account, it is a later Anglo-Norman surname rather than a native Gaelic word-form. Some older surname books also connect Cruise with forms such as Crewe or Crewes, so the name may reflect more than one historical spelling stream.
History
Lower reports an Irish family tradition that the Cruises descended from a Norman who settled in Cornwall and whose descendants later came to Ireland with Strongbow, where they acquired lands in Dublin and Meath. Other 19th-century references treat Cruise as a spelling or variant link to Crewe/Crewes, showing that the name was not always analyzed in a single way. In modern usage it is best known as an Irish surname, and it remains relatively uncommon in the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname appears in older Irish surname scholarship alongside the form Cruice, which suggests a long history of spelling variation in the same family lines.
From the historical record
“legs" — a sobriquet. CRUISE. SeeCrewys. CRULI. See Croom. CRUJMP. Belgic crom^ uncus. Crooked, in relation to personal deformity. "Crumpt or crookt." Nomenclator, p. 44. Hal- liwell. CRUNDEL. There is a parish called Crundal, in Kent, and another called Cron- dall, in Hampshire ; but from the occurrence”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom