Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place in Wootton Fitzpaine, Dorset, Gupehegh in Middle English. This is named with the Old English personal name Guppa (a short form of Gūðbeorht ‘battle bright’) + (ge)hæg ‘enclosure’. The tropical fish denoted by this word was named in the 19th century in honor of R.J.L. Guppy, a clergyman in Trinidad who first presented specimens to the British Museum.
- The earliest known bearer of the name is Nicholas de Gupehegh (Somerset, 1253/4). Most if not all present-day bearers of the name are thought to descend from a certain William Guppy of Chardstock, Devon, who in 1497 was fined forty shillings for his alleged part in the rebellion of Perkin Warbeck.