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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Americanized spelling of Dutch Kuiper or North German Keuper, occupational name for a cooper.
  • Altered form of East Prussian Keiper, occupational name for someone who caught fish in a trap, from an agent derivative of keip ‘fish trap’, ‘weir’.
  • Altered form of German Kaufer ‘merchant’.
  • Jewish (from Poland and Ukraine) : metonymic occupational name for a coppersmith, from central and southeastern Yiddish kiper ‘copper’. In some instances it may have been adopted as an ornamental name.

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