Family name origins & meanings
- English : from Middle English clapper ‘rough bridge’, applied as a topographic name or as a habitational name from any of the numerous minor places named with this word.
- English : nickname from an agent derivative of Middle English clappe ‘chatter’.
- Americanized spelling of German and Jewish Klapper ‘chatterer’.
- Americanized form of German Klopper, a metonymic occupational name relating to several trades, from Middle Low German klopper ‘clapper’, ‘bobbin’, ‘hammer’.