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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : topographic name for someone who lived near a chapel, from Middle English chapel(l)e ‘chapel’, via Old French, from Late Latin capella, originally a diminutive of capa ‘hood’, ‘cloak’, but later transferred to the sense ‘chapel’, ‘sanctuary’, with reference to the shrine at Tours where the cloak of St. Martin was preserved as a relic.
  • Americanized spelling of French Chappelle.

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