Grover

Variations – Groves, Graves, Greaves
Racial Origin – Anglo-Saxon
Source – Descriptive, geographically. 

Grover is one of those family names the descent of which can be traced straight to Anglo-Saxon sources, and one of those of which the origin is plain to the modern eye.

It falls within that large classification of surnames which may be followed back to words denoting topography or character of the country in which the original bearers of the names presumably lived.

In modern English the word grove has come to take on the meaning, as commonly used, of a clump of trees, or a park studded with trees.  As used by the Anglo-Saxons, however, it meant a road through the woods, and later it naturally took on the meaning of an avenue lined with trees.

The names Grover, Graves and Greaves all come from this source.  Families which dwelt along such stretches of road naturally came to be distinguished at a very early period by their neighbors by such a phrases as “at the grove” and the like, which is the reason that surnames of this character are of much longer standing as hereditary titles than those denoting personal characteristics or parentage.  As the son lived in the same place as the father, he naturally acquired the same descriptive name without any conscious attempt at the establishment of a regular family name.