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.