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My grandfather, Karl Bernhard Karlsen was born Karl Bernhard Greif. Either his farher or most likely his grandfather was German. When he and my grandmother, Berit Myklebost wee engaged, World War I was in progress and my grandmother refused to marry a person with a German surname. In the traditional Norwegian way, my grandfather took his father's (Karl Greif) first name as the stem of his surname, i.e. Karlsen, the modern form of Karlson or son of Karl.
The Greif surname may have been spelled as Greiff.
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Balázs Déri :
Greif families may descend from Gariife son of Somaale Osmaan.the ancestor of Somali nobility .
He may be identical with Khalifa,king of Soninke-Malinke of origin from Assuan and Malaya,called also Meroe,formerly Saba ,until about 1245 according to Italians counting from 1349 b.c.. He might have been then the ancestor or chief of Garifuna ( Gariife-Huna ) and of the extinct Khalifona tribes of Arawak langauge in the Caribic region,the fisrt also called therfor and because of intermarriage with Caribians and Igneri-Arawaks,Black Caribs .
California might also be named after him .
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