View Message

Montreaux is a toponymic surname, meaning it derives back to a place where the first ancestors originated from. This place in question is Montreux, Switzerland, most likely, although there are other villages that bear this name. For example, in France there are at least four villages starting with Montreux.

Sean Foglai said about the meaning that mont would mean mountain, but in this case this is not true. The name is the result of a corruption through history of the French word monastère , which means, like you probably already guessed, a 'monastery' (they're very much alike, the two words). This is stated at the site www.montreux-vevey.com at the history section of Montreux, but you could also find it in the German name of Montreux-Vieux, a village in the Alsace (where they also speak German). This German name is Alt-Münsterol. Alt is similar to vieux and münster means indeed 'monastery' (monastery, monastère, münster, all are from the latin word monasterium ).

Another important fact is that all places bearing the name Montreux are built around a monastery or there is one built very near.

A last note about the surname Montreuil:
Montreuil is taken from monasteriolum , which means 'little monastery'. In spite of thise, the surname Montreuil is not a variation on Montreux, nor the other way around.