Groves
A mainly English surname that usually came from someone living by a grove of trees.
The #1,447 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 12,536 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Groves is a topographic surname from the word grove, meaning a small wood, clump of trees, or wooded enclosure. The name was first used for someone who lived near such a place, or occasionally for someone from a locality called Grove. The final -s is a common English surname ending, sometimes marking a place association or a genitive-like form.
History
19th-century surname writers consistently treated Groves as a variant of Grove and explained it as a residence-name. It appears in medieval and later English records, and the name remains especially common in England and the English-speaking world. Some families with the surname may descend from different local places named Grove, so the name can be independently formed in more than one area.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Old surname books sometimes glossed Grove as meaning simply 'at the grove,' referring to a wooded spot near the home.
From the historical record
“GROVER. See Grove. GROVES. See Grove. GROWSE See Grouse. GRUBBE. "The family of Grubbo, 6pelt in the old registers Griilie or Groube, migrated from Germany about the year 1430, after the Hussite persecutions, and subsequently settled at Eastwell in the par- isli of Potterne, co. Wilts, where they have ever since…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom