Family name origins & meanings
- English : nickname from Middle English pope (derived via Old English from Late Latin papa ‘bishop’, ‘pope’, from Greek pappas ‘father’, in origin a nursery word.) In the early Christian Church, the Latin term was at first used as a title of respect for male clergy of every rank, but in the Western Church it gradually came to be restricted to bishops, and then only to the bishop of Rome; in the Eastern Church it continued to be used of all priests (see Popov, Papas). The nickname would have been used for a vain or pompous man, or for someone who had played the part of the pope in a pageant or play. The surname is also present in Ireland and Scotland.
- North German : variant of Poppe.
- Nathaniel Pope, a “marriner” from London and Bristol, England, patented a property on Northern Neck, VA, in 1651 that later became known as “The Clifts”.