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Help[Surname] Re: HELP!!
in reply to a message by XxPriNceEsSxX
This depends on the national origin.
If it's an English name, it's from Old French grafe, "stylus, pencil", originally a nickname for a scribe.
But if it's German or Jewish, it's a spelling variation of Graf, the German word for "count," the aristocratic title. In some parts of Germany (such as Hesse) the word was used for the headman of a village. But it also could have been originally a nickname for someone whose neighbors thought he acted or looked like the local Graf (count).
If it's an English name, it's from Old French grafe, "stylus, pencil", originally a nickname for a scribe.
But if it's German or Jewish, it's a spelling variation of Graf, the German word for "count," the aristocratic title. In some parts of Germany (such as Hesse) the word was used for the headman of a village. But it also could have been originally a nickname for someone whose neighbors thought he acted or looked like the local Graf (count).
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