Grimaldi
An Italian surname likely from a Germanic personal name meaning “grim” or “fierce,” later made famous by the Genoese Grimaldi family.
The #7,633 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 70,992 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is generally understood as deriving from the old Germanic personal name Grimwald or Grimald, built from elements meaning “grim” or “fierce” and “rule” or “power.” In Italy, this became the hereditary family name Grimaldi, with the ending shaped by Italian usage. The name is therefore not originally from an Italian word, but from a Germanic personal name adopted into Italian form.
History
The Grimaldi name is historically associated with Genoa, where the family became prominent in medieval and later times. Nineteenth-century writers explicitly connected it with Germanic name forms such as Grimwald and treated the Genoese line as evidence of that origin. The surname later became internationally familiar through the House of Grimaldi, rulers of Monaco.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Several 19th-century onomastic writers used the Grimaldi family as a textbook example of a Germanic name that took on an Italian shape.
From the historical record
“well-authenticated instance, in which it is a corruption of the Norman Basset. Inf. Stacey Grimaldi, Esq., F.S.A. BESWICK. Places in cos. York and Lancaster. The B.'s of Gristhorpe have been seated there for iipwards of four centuries. B.L.G.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom