Northern English and Scottish: habitational name from a place
called Copeland, of which there is an example in Cumbria, or from
Coupland in Northumberland, both named with Old Norse
kaupa-land ‘bought land’, a feature worthy of note during the
early Middle Ages, when land was rarely sold, but rather held by
feudal tenure and handed down from one generation to the next.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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