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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • French : compound name from Old French chape ‘hooded cloak’, ‘cape’, ‘hat’ + de laine ‘of wool’, probably applied as a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such apparel, or as a nickname for someone who wore a distinctive cloak or hat.
  • A Chapdelaine from Normandy, France, is documented at Saint-Ours, Quebec, in 1691, with the secondary surname La Rivière, which is thus translated Rivers.

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