Origin of the name Pettygrove

Origin of the name Pettygrove

According to The History of British Surnames, by C. L'Estrange Ewen (p. 236) the name Pettigrew means "the crane's grove," with "petti" being the word for crane and "grew" the word for grove. Pettigrove is a partial translation and means exactly the same thing. It is a name given to people from their place of residence and presumably the first Pettigroves lived near a crane's grove. A similar explanation is that the name was Peire de Gru, which means "crane's foot" in French. The names Pettigrew and Pettigrove are logical translations of this. The French tie comes from the oral tradition that the Pettigroves were Huguenots in France, who came to England to avoid religious persecution during the period around 1572, when 20,000 Huguenots were massacred.