Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for someone with gray hair or a gray beard, from German grau ‘gray’.
- Southern French : topographic name for someone who lived near a canal giving access to the sea, Occitan grau (Latin gradus ‘step’).
- French : from Old French grau denoting a type of agricultural fork with curved tines (apparently of Germanic origin), hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker, seller, or user of such implements.
- Catalan : topographic name from grau (Latin gradum).
- Catalan : from a reduced form of the common medieval personal name Guerau (see Gerald).
