Family name origins & meanings
- German, Polish, and Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : variant spelling of Karp.
- English : from Middle English, Old French carpe ‘carp’, in some cases a nickname for a greedy person or for someone thought to resemble the fish in some other way; also a metonymic occupational name for a carp fisherman or a seller of the fish.
- English : possibly a nickname for a garrulous or complaining person, from Middle English carp(e) ‘carping speech’.