De Groot

De Groot () is a surname of Dutch origin. 
Translating as "the great/big/large/tall" it originated as a nickname for a big or tall person. The name has sometimes been Latinized as "Grotius", as in the case of Hugo Grotius. In 2007, there were 36,147 people with this surname in the Netherlands, making it the 13th most common surname in the country, and 1179 in Belgium. Less common variants are "De Groote" (729 in Netherlands, 5093 in Belgium), "De Grooth" (127, 0), "Groot" (9239, 43) and "Groote" (777, 2). The form "De Grote", matching modern Dutch grammar, is very rare (43 in the Netherlands only), and names like Karel de Grote tend to refer to historical figures called "the Great"", in this case Charlemagne. The agglutinated forms DeGroot and Degroot are mostly found abroad.
People with the name include: