COPPING
Copping is a surname of English origin that appears in the surviving records of the British Isles from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. It is generally accepted that the name derives from the Old English copp, meaning “top” or “summit”, and was used to identify those who dwelt on hilltops, ridges or other high points of the landscape. The name may also reflect an occupation linked to the management of woodland, as the term coppicer denotes a person who cutters and re‑grows trees by a practice now known as coppicing.
In the earliest documentary evidence the surname appears in several distinct spellings, including Copyn, Coppin and Copping. These forms are typical of the orthographic variation that was common in the Middle Ages, prior to the standardisation of spelling. The suffix -ing in the form Copp-ing could indicate a tribal association, suggesting an original meaning of “people of the summit”. An alternative hypothesis, drawn from Norman influence after the Norman Conquest of 1066, proposes a derivation from a French diminutive Coppin that itself comes from the Italian Coppo, a nickname for the Hebrew name Jacob meaning “supplanter”. While this latter line of reasoning is less widely accepted, the possibility is documented in the surviving charters.
Records from the Hundred Rolls of 1275 provide the earliest explicit mention of the surname in Suffolk, where a man named Andrew le Copping was listed as a resident. Earlier references, such as the name of William Copyn in the Worcester Hundred Rolls of the same year, establish that the name was already in use by the late thirteenth century. Subsequent medieval documents record individuals such as Robert Coppin, rector of Hethel in Norfolk, in 1468, and John Copping of Bury St. Edmunds, executed in 1583 for dissent against Queen Elizabeth I. These attestations confirm that the surname had become sufficiently widespread to appear in a range of legal and ecclesiastical contexts.
In 1608 King James I granted a coat of arms to a member of the Copping family. The blazon recorded by the College of Arms describes a gold field charged with a chief of one row in vaire, while the crest consists of a golden cock issuing from a ducal coronet. Heraldic documentation confirms that this device was authorised by royal licence and that the ecclesiastical armorial evidence persists in the register of 17th‑century heraldry.
In modern times the surname remains most common within the United Kingdom, particularly in the northern counties of Northumberland and Yorkshire, as well as in Cornwall where the place name Coppin is situated. The name has also spread to North America and Australasia. In the United States, concentrations appear in the states of Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania; in Canada it is mainly found in Ontario and Quebec. Australian records show that the surname is predominantly located in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, reflecting migration patterns from Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Notable individuals bearing the surname include the eighteenth‑century composer Robert Copping, remembered for his instrumental compositions, and the twentieth‑century professional ice‑hockey player Justin Copping, who participated in six Stanley Cup championships during his career from 1974 to 1995. The continued presence of the surname in diverse fields illustrates its endurance and the broad dispersal of families who adopted it across the English‑speaking world.
Typical given names associated with the Copping surname
Male
- Andrew
- Christopher
- David
- John
- Marc
- Mark
- Michael
- Paul
- Peter
- Richard
- Steven
Female
- Elizabeth
- Emma
- Janet
- Julie
- Linda
- Louise
- Margaret
- Nicola
- Patricia
- Pauline
- Rebecca
- Sarah
- Susan
- Teresa
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Copping in...
Braille
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Morse
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Semaphore
There are approximately 2,437 people named Copping in the UK. That makes it roughly the 3,578th most common surname in Britain. Around 37 in a million people in Britain are named Copping.
Surname type: Location or geographical feature
Origin: English
Region of origin: British Isles
Country of origin: England
Religion of origin: Christian
Language of origin: English
Famous people named Copping
- Chris Copping - Musician
- Harold Copping - Artist (1863 to 1932)
- Wilf Copping - Football player and manager (1909 to 1980)
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.