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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from an agent derivative of Middle High German klappern ‘chatter’, ‘rattle’, hence a nickname for a talkative person or a gossip or a metonymic occupational name for a night watchman, a reference to the clapper used for making announcements. As a Jewish name it could be a metonymic occupational name for someone who called people to the synagogue.

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