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Re: A last name that is curiously absent from the database...
According to this -
http://www.familie-greve.de/modules.php?op=modload&name=lexikon&file=index&id=44&val=g
Grimm could be adjectival, "grim, fierce, savage", or from a place-name, Grimm in Bavaria, or similar place-names. The name is well represented in Bavaria, though far from exclusive to that region.
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Replies

In addition to that ...According to Rosa and Volker Kohlheim, Familiennamen, Mannheim 2000, there are a few more options:
1. place-names outside Bavaria (Grimma, Saxony; Grimme, Saxony-Anhalt or Brandenburg; Grimmen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or East Prussia; this explains the wide distribution of the surname)
2. surname that goes back to a short form of personal names containing the element GRIM, mask, helmet (later confused with "grim") (Seibicke's HDV even lists GRIM as a first name)
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Thanks to both replies.However,I already knew what it meant.I was just disappointed it wasn't in the database.I don't understand why it's absent, seeing as it's not an obscure name (as far as i know).Grimm is a very well known name.Who doesn't know the Brothers Grimm, right?
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