Family name origins & meanings
- Americanized spelling of Dutch Kuiper or North German Keuper, occupational name for a cooper.
- Altered form of East Prussian Keiper, occupational name for someone who caught fish in a trap, from an agent derivative of keip ‘fish trap’, ‘weir’.
- Altered form of German Kaufer ‘merchant’.
- Jewish (from Poland and Ukraine) : metonymic occupational name for a coppersmith, from central and southeastern Yiddish kiper ‘copper’. In some instances it may have been adopted as an ornamental name.