Papa Family History

Italian: nickname from papa ‘father’, ‘priest’, ‘pope’. In southern Italy it is generally a nickname for someone thought to resemble a priest, or in some cases for the illegitimate child of a priest, but in the North it is more often a nickname meaning ‘pope’, denoting a vain or pompous man. In Calabria it also means ‘uncle’. Greek: shortened form of any of various names beginning with papas ‘priest’, for example Papageorgiou ‘priest George’. Compare Papas. In the Eastern Church priests are allowed to marry and have children. French: from a dialect variant of French Pape. Dutch: variant of Pappert. Hungarian: probably from the old secular personal name Pápa, but in some cases possibly a habitational name from a place called Pápa in Veszprém county, or some other place similarly named.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press