Family name origins & meanings
- English (mainly northern), North German, Dutch, and French : nickname for someone with a severe or pompous manner or perhaps a pageant name for someone who had played the part of a pope or priest, from Middle English pope or Old French pape ‘pope’, Middle Low German, Middle Dutch pape ‘priest’, Old French pape ‘pope’. Compare Papa.
- German : nickname from a baby word for ‘father’. Compare Baab.