Grefsheim - a farm of many names

1313-1903

Grefsheim has had many names. In older sources we find the form Græfsæimi, and in 1398 Grefsseims.

Then followed Grefsheime (1460), Grepsheime and Grefsen (1462), Grepsheim (1463), Greffshem (1467), Greffsym (1471), Grepsem (1473), Grefsem, Greffsæm and Grefsinn (1488), Grefseim (1489), Grefsin (1490), Gressen (1493), Grefsim (1496), Greffsem (1500), Greffssene (1530), Gryffsum and Græffsym (1536), Grepsæ and Grepse (1537), Grebsingh (1552), Greffßenn (1578), Greffsen (1604) and Græfs Eng (1723).

In the 1801 census the farm was called Grefseng, while people on Nes said «Græfsom».

But what does the name actually mean? The place-name scholar Oluf Rygh thought it might be linked to the old word grofs, a rock cave or steep-sided hollow. Another explanation links it to grefsi or gref, an old word for a mattock or hoe. There is no certain answer.

In 1903 the then owner, Johan Egeberg Mellbye, had the spelling Grefsheim officially fixed.

Source: Oluf Rygh: Norske Gaardnavne, vol. 3. Store norske leksikon: «gårdsnavn». The 1801 census. Gunhild Kolstad: Nes bygdebok (1995), p. 345.

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