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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German : occupational name or status name from the German word Knapp(e), a variant of Knabe ‘young unmarried man’. In the 15th century this spelling acquired the separate, specialized meanings ‘servant’, ‘apprentice’, or ‘miner’.
  • German : in Franconia, a nickname for a dexterous or skillful person.
  • English : topographic name for someone who lived by a hillock, Middle English knappe, Old English cnæpp, or habitational name from any of the several minor places named with the word, in particular Knapp in Hampshire and Knepp in Sussex.
  • German and western Slavic : variant of Knabe.

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