This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'at the green,' from residence thereby. A grassy plat used by the village as common. As every village had its green, it is not surprising that our modern directories teem with the name.

Deonisia ate Grene, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Warin de la Grene, ibid.

Robert de la Grene, Close Rolls, 3 Edward I.

Petnis del Grene, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Adam del Grene, 1379: ibid.

Willelmus del Grene, 1379: ibid.

From residence near a 'green.' "As every village had its green, it is not surprising that our modern directories teem with the name" (Bardsley). Roger del ('of the') Grene in Roxburghshire rendered homage in 1296 (Bain, II, p. 206). Master John Grene, chancellor of Moray, 1463 (OPS., II, p. 838).

(English) Dweller at a Green [Middle English grene, Old English gréne = Old Norse grœnn] Warin de la Grene.— Hundred Rolls And were y’as good as George-a-Green I should make bold to turn agen.— Butler, Hudibras, II. ii. 505-6. (Celtic) for Grehan, q.v.

(English) Dweller at, or near, the village green, or grassy ground.

From residence near an unenclosed space, or common ground. H.R. Ate-Grene, Del Grene, De-la-Grene, and A la Grene. As every village had its green, the commonness of the name is easily accounted for. The Lond. Direct, for 1852 mentions 222 traders so called, besides a few Greenes. Grene is also a personal name occurring in Domesday.

From the Danish, Grün; from the Dutch, Groen; in the Domesday Book, Greno, Grino; a personal name.

Green. —Pretty well distributed all over England, but particularly numerous in the east of England in the adjacent counties of Cambridge, Lincoln, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Esses; also in Worcestershire, Somerset, Wilts, and the West Riding. Very rare or absent, in Devon and Cornwall.

During the last century the Biddles were numerous in Caudle Green (Bigl.). Two Staffordshire gentlemen, named Biddall or Biddull, gave £25 apiece to the Spanish Armada fund in 1588 (Sp.).

The name Green stems from the Old English word ‘grene’, which means village green. Originally this was part of the common land where the villagers all had certain free grazing rights. Green is one of the oldest names in England, for obvious reasons in a country which was once such a ‘green and pleasant land’. In this short form the name meant ‘one who lives near the village green’.

There is, however, another derivation of Green. Since very early times the word green has meant young, fresh, immature or callow. Often a villager would be called ‘green’ because of something he had done in his youth; the nickname would stick and in time it would become the family name. Despite this, Green has long been a popular English name. In 1853 Green was the seventeenth most popular name in England. Now it has crept up to sixteenth.

Some of today’s Greens (or Greenes or Grenes) are shortened versions of ‘attegreen’-at the green. The word green enters into many place names which have given rise to surnames, and these each have their own different meanings, many not so obvious as they would appear.

Most Greenfields, for instance, derive not from ‘green fields’, but from Grenville, a place name in France and the name of several Anglo-Norman families. Many Jews who fled from the pogroms of Eastern Europe during the final decades of the last century decided to take English names when they reached the safety of these shores. Some simply chose any English name which took their fancy. Others adopted the name of the place where they had landed in England; there are, for instance, several Jewish families called Hastings. (As Michael Hastings, the Jewish writer, remarked, he was lucky his family didn’t arrive at Dungeness or Wapping.) Other Jews anglicised their original names so that, for example, German-Jewish Grunwalds might become Greenwoods.

Some Greenfields derive from an earlier anglicisation. Several of William the Conqueror’s men who crossed to fight at the Battle of Hastings came from the tiny Normandy village of Grainville-la-Teinturiere (which is now in the Seine- Maritime department). When they settled in England their name was quickly corrupted to Grenville (or even Grenfell), and later became Greenfield. These, and other, apparently far-fetched changes are easier to understand when you realise that in those times there was no standardised spelling in English. People even spelt their own name in several different ways. As late as the sixteenth century we find as many as thirteen different variations in the spelling of the name Shakespeare, many deriving from Shakespeare’s own casual usage.

Another related surname is Greenford. This literally means ‘ford at a green’, but where the name is concerned it derives from a particular place, the small town just west of London in Middlesex. Greenhalgh, another common name, means ‘green place’ (especially the Lancashire examples), and Greenacre means ‘green field’ (not necessarily a strict acre). This latter name is thought to have originated from Norfolk.

Greenham sometimes meant ‘green river meadow’, while this name also originates from the places of the same name in Berkshire and Somerset, though the Greenham in Somerset may be a corruption of ‘grind’, describing a millstream. Greenhowe and Greenhoff mean ‘green mount or hill’ and mainly originated (with many variations of spelling) in north and west Yorkshire.

Greensmiths, on the other hand, were originally copper­smiths. The reason they were called ‘green’ was because the flames of their fires would turn green as they worked their copper, or, according to some, because copper acquires a green patina as it is worked.

The earliest Green in the records is Geoffrey de Grene, who appears in the 1188 Pipe Rolls for Kent.

A Green was making aviation history before the Wright brothers were born. Balloonist extraordinary Charles Green (1793—1841) astonished the world by flying from Vauxhall Gardens, London, to Weilberg, Germany (480 miles), in just under 18 hours (1836). In all, he made 527 ascents, including one which exceeded 27,000 feet in height.

The popular English melody ‘Greensleeves’ is of Elizabethan origin (published 1581) and is mentioned in Shakespeare. It was initially described as ‘a new courtly sonnet of the Lady Greensleeves’.

George Green (1793—1841) is widely regarded as the father of modern physics in Great Britain. He was the first to attempt to apply mathematical formulae to electricity and magnetism. ‘Green’s Theorem’ is named after his work.

Baron William Wyndham Grenville (1759—1834), as Prime Minister, abolished Britain’s overseas slave trade on his last day in office.

A man bearing a Green-related surname caused the American Revolution: politician George Grenville (1712—70) initiated the tax acts which caused the colonies to revolt.

The ‘Green Man’ is now a common name for a pub. The origins of the name go back to pre-Christian times and are thought to be connected with fertility cults. The image of the Green Man is found on some thirteenth- to fifteenth-century churches in connection with the Easter resurrection.

David Green (1886—1973) is better known by his pseudonym, David Ben-Gurion, Israeli statesman and first Premier of his country.

One Edward W. Green committed the first bank robbery in American history, in 1863. He was caught within 24 hours.

Richard Grenville (1542—91) is one of Britain’s greatest naval heroes. Separated from his own fleet, his ship The Revenge took on 15 Spanish men-of-war and fought them for over 12 hours. Finally Grenville was captured and died of his wounds. His exploit is celebrated in Tennyson’s poem ‘The Revenge’ and in Charles Kingsley’s novel Westward Ho!.

A total of 109 towns and cities contain the word green. The United Kingdom alone accounts for 42 of these, ranging from Green Bank to Greenthorpe. This includes no fewer than 5 Greenfields. The United States has 9 towns and cities with this latter name, as well as 6 Greensboros and 5 Greensburgs.

Given its descriptive nature, countless rivers, lakes, mountains and islands bear the name; so does a country-Greenland.

With about 185,000 namesakes Green is the 16th most popular surname in England and Wales. (The name is not common enough throughout Scotland to be counted separately.) Green is notably popular in and around Sheffield where an estimated one in about 210 families bears the name. In descending numerical order Birmingham, Leicester and Nottingham are other Green strongholds. Around the world Greens are most common in Auckland (one in 525 families), Sydney (one in 573) and Wellington (one in 723). The United States has more Greens than the entire population of Bristol-an estimated total of just over 427,000 makes this their 37th most popular surname.