Family name origins & meanings
- German and Dutch : topographic name for a person living near a chapel, from Middle High German kap(p)elle, kappel ‘chapel’. This is a loanword from Late Latin cap(p)ella, a diminutive of cappa ‘hooded cloak’, the first building to be so called having housed a cloak that reputedly belonged to St. Martin of Tours.
- German and Dutch : habitational name from a place named with this word, of which there are many examples in northwestern Germany.
- German (Käppel) : diminutive of Kapp.