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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : topographic name for someone who lived in a dense forest, from Middle English grene ‘green’ + wode ‘wood’, or a habitational name from a minor place so named, as for example Greenwood in Heathfield, East Sussex.
  • English translation of Ashkenazic Jewish Grünholz, an ornamental compound of German grün ‘green’ + Holz ‘wood’, and probably of German Grünwald (see Gruenwald).
  • English translation of French Boisvert.

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