Family name origins & meanings
- English and French : occupational name for a clergyman, or perhaps for the servant of one, from Middle English, Old French chapelain ‘chantry priest’, a priest endowed to sing mass daily on behalf of the souls of the dead (Late Latin capellanus).
- Ukrainian and Belorussian : patronymic from the nickname Chaplya, from the dialect word chaplya ‘heron’, ‘stork’ (Russian tsaplya), referring to a man with long, thin legs or perhaps one who was shy and easily frightened.
- Clement Chaplin was one of the founders of Hartford, CT, (coming from Cambridge, MA, with Thomas Hooker) in 1635.