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Updated March 13, 2024

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Family name origins & meanings

  • Southern Italian : from Sicilian and southern Italian apa, lapa ‘bee’, applied as a nickname for someone thought to resemble a bee in some way or as a metonymic occupational name for a beekeeper.
  • Hungarian : from apa ‘father’, one of various surnames derived from relationship terms which were presumably originally applied with reference to someone of importance; other examples include Bátya ‘brother’, Fi ‘son’ Fia ‘his son’, Gyermek ‘child’, Unoka ‘grandchild’.
  • Hungarian : from an old secular personal name Appa. The Transylvanian royal name Apafi is a patronymic from this name.

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