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The pope Surname

pope Name Meaning and History

  1. English: nickname from Middle English pope (derived via Old English from Late Latin papa ‘bishop’, ‘pope’, from Greek pappas ‘father’, in origin a nursery word.) In the early Christian Church, the Latin term was at first used as a title of respect for male clergy of every rank, but in the Western Church it gradually came to be restricted to bishops, and then only to the bishop of Rome; in the Eastern Church it continued to be used of all priests (see Popov, Papas). The nickname would have been used for a vain or pompous man, or for someone who had played the part of the pope in a pageant or play. The surname is also present in Ireland and Scotland.
  2. North German: variant of Poppe.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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The pope name in History

A unique volume of fascinating facts, statistics and commentary following the pope family name as far back in history as possible.

pope Family Facts

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Distribution of pope Families in the US in 1920
Number of pope families
 327-651
 110-326		 1-109
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.com from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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Year

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