Find out how popular the last name Gruen is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Gruen.

Gruen, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Gruen surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Gruen in America

Gruen is the 21348th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Gruen surname appeared 1,227 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 people would have the surname Gruen.

We can also compare 2010 data for Gruen to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Gruen

The surname Gruen is of German origin, and its earliest recorded instances can be traced back to the 14th century. It is believed to be derived from the Middle High German word "gruene," which means "green" or "verdant." This suggests that the name may have originally referred to someone who lived near a green or lush area, or perhaps someone who had a profession related to nature or agriculture.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Gruen can be found in the Codex Diplomaticus Brandenburgensis, a collection of historical documents from the Margraviate of Brandenburg dating back to the 13th century. In this document, a certain "Conradus Grune" is mentioned as a landowner in the village of Biesenthal in the year 1375.

In the 15th century, the Gruen surname appears in various municipal records and tax rolls across Germany. Notably, a man named Hans Gruen is listed as a resident of the town of Nuremberg in 1482. During this time, the name also began to appear in different spellings, such as "Grün" and "Grune," reflecting regional variations in pronunciation and orthography.

As the centuries passed, the Gruen surname continued to spread across German-speaking regions, with various branches of the family establishing themselves in different areas. One notable example is Johann Gruen (1524-1594), a German jurist and legal scholar who served as a councilor to the Duke of Württemberg.

In the 18th century, the Gruen name gained prominence in the world of watchmaking. In 1774, a watchmaker named Dietrich Gruen established a watch factory in Nuremberg, which would go on to become one of the most renowned watchmaking companies in Germany. His descendants, including his son Georg Gruen (1814-1892) and grandson Dietrich Gruen II (1847-1919), continued to build upon the family's legacy in the watchmaking industry.

Another notable figure with the Gruen surname was Karl Gruen (1817-1887), a German-American journalist and politician who served as the 14th Mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, from 1865 to 1869.

As German immigrants began to settle in various parts of the world, the Gruen surname also spread beyond its origins. One prominent example is the American artist Arshile Gorky (1904-1948), whose original surname was Gruen before he changed it to reflect his Armenian heritage.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Gruen

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Gruen.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Gruen was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Gruen has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Gruen was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Gruen, please contact us.

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