Grégoire
A French surname from the personal name Gregory, ultimately meaning “watchful” or “vigilant.”
The #5,976 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 53,630 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Grégoire comes from the French given name Grégoire, the French form of Gregory. That personal name ultimately goes back to Greek gregorios, from gregorein, meaning “to watch” or “to be awake.” In surname use, it originally identified someone as “son of Gregory” or as a family connected with a man named Gregory.
History
The surname is especially associated with French-speaking areas, and it also appears in French Canada and among descendants of French settlers elsewhere. English-language surname books often list it alongside other European forms of Gregory, showing how the same Christian personal name produced many local surname variants. The form without the accent, Gregoire, is common in records outside French typographic contexts.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same Greek root behind Grégoire also lies behind the English surname Gregory and the more remote continental forms listed in old surname books.
From the historical record
“G. Gregor, Grieger, Kreck, Krex ; Fl. Greek ; Fr. Gregoire ; p.n. See Grigg Greig. See Gregg Grenham. From Greenham ; a”
— British Family Names: their origin and meaning (1st ed.)