Chapman is an English surname derived from the
Old English occupational name céapmann "marketman, monger, merchant", from the verb céapan, cypan "to buy or sell" and the noun form ceap "barter, business, purchase." Alternate spellings include Caepmon, Cepeman, Chepmon, Cypman(n), and Shapman. (By 1600, the occupational name chapman had come to be applied to an itinerant dealer in particular, but it remained in use for both "customer, buyer" and "merchant" in the 17th and 18th centuries. Modern chiefly British slang chap “man" arose from the use of the abbreviated word to mean a customer, one with whom to bargain.)
The
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) supplies four meanings for chapman, all of which pertain to buying and selling: 1) A man whose business was buying and selling; 2) an itinerant dealer who travels, also known as a hawker or peddler; 3) an agent in a commercial transaction; 4) a purchaser or customer. (N.B. A “petty chapman” was a retail dealer.) The OED includes a citation of an English ordinance or decree that dates from 1553, during the reign of
Edward VI: "No Tinker, Peddler, or petit Chapman shall wander about from the Towne but such as shall be licensed by two Justices of Peace." According to a list of colonial occupations, a chapman is a peddler or dealer of goods, usually itinerant, going from village to village. The related word
chapbook is a later coinage from the 19th century which appears to refer to the fact that chapbooks were very cheaply made. From
Old Englishceap is also derived cheap “inexpensive,” a shortening of good ceap “good buy,” and
Cheapside “market place,” a street in
London that both historically and in modern times has been the financial center of the city.
Both the compound “chapman” and its first element chap- have cognates in all the major Germanic languages: From the prehistoric West Germanic compound *kaup- are derived cognates Old
Saxoncop, Old
Frisiankap "trade, purchase," Middle
Dutchcoop, modern Dutch kopen “ to buy,” koop "trade, market, bargain and goedkoop “inexpensive." These are akin to
Old High Germanchoufman,GermanKaufmann, a common modern
German surname; and North
Germanic forms leading to Old
Norsekaup "bargain, pay,” modern
Swedishköpa “buy,” and modern
Danishkjøb "purchase, bargain" and
Copenhagen (originally Køpmannæhafn "merchants' harbor, buyer's haven"). The common ancestor is
Proto-Germanic*kaupoz-, which was probably an ancient Germanic borrowing of
Latincaupo, caupon- "petty tradesman, huckster," of unknown ulterior etymology. From the German the word was borrowed into the
Slavic languages (
Old Slavic koupiti, modern
Russian купить, etc.), the
Baltic languages (
Old Prussiankaupiskan “trade, commerce,”
Lithuaniankὑpczus “merchant”) and
Finnishkaupata “to sell cheaply.” In the
Romance languages, however, the word has not survived.
People with the surname or nickname Chapman include:
Richard "Ricky" Chapman/Caldwell, brother of Billy and antagonist of later Silent Night, Deadly Night films
Hedrick Chapman, minor antagonist in the Animorphs novel series
Melissa Chapman, Hedrick's daughter
References
Surname list
This page lists people with the
surnameChapman. If an
internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that
link by adding the person's
given name(s) to the link.
Chapman is an English surname derived from the
Old English occupational name céapmann "marketman, monger, merchant", from the verb céapan, cypan "to buy or sell" and the noun form ceap "barter, business, purchase." Alternate spellings include Caepmon, Cepeman, Chepmon, Cypman(n), and Shapman. (By 1600, the occupational name chapman had come to be applied to an itinerant dealer in particular, but it remained in use for both "customer, buyer" and "merchant" in the 17th and 18th centuries. Modern chiefly British slang chap “man" arose from the use of the abbreviated word to mean a customer, one with whom to bargain.)
The
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) supplies four meanings for chapman, all of which pertain to buying and selling: 1) A man whose business was buying and selling; 2) an itinerant dealer who travels, also known as a hawker or peddler; 3) an agent in a commercial transaction; 4) a purchaser or customer. (N.B. A “petty chapman” was a retail dealer.) The OED includes a citation of an English ordinance or decree that dates from 1553, during the reign of
Edward VI: "No Tinker, Peddler, or petit Chapman shall wander about from the Towne but such as shall be licensed by two Justices of Peace." According to a list of colonial occupations, a chapman is a peddler or dealer of goods, usually itinerant, going from village to village. The related word
chapbook is a later coinage from the 19th century which appears to refer to the fact that chapbooks were very cheaply made. From
Old Englishceap is also derived cheap “inexpensive,” a shortening of good ceap “good buy,” and
Cheapside “market place,” a street in
London that both historically and in modern times has been the financial center of the city.
Both the compound “chapman” and its first element chap- have cognates in all the major Germanic languages: From the prehistoric West Germanic compound *kaup- are derived cognates Old
Saxoncop, Old
Frisiankap "trade, purchase," Middle
Dutchcoop, modern Dutch kopen “ to buy,” koop "trade, market, bargain and goedkoop “inexpensive." These are akin to
Old High Germanchoufman,GermanKaufmann, a common modern
German surname; and North
Germanic forms leading to Old
Norsekaup "bargain, pay,” modern
Swedishköpa “buy,” and modern
Danishkjøb "purchase, bargain" and
Copenhagen (originally Køpmannæhafn "merchants' harbor, buyer's haven"). The common ancestor is
Proto-Germanic*kaupoz-, which was probably an ancient Germanic borrowing of
Latincaupo, caupon- "petty tradesman, huckster," of unknown ulterior etymology. From the German the word was borrowed into the
Slavic languages (
Old Slavic koupiti, modern
Russian купить, etc.), the
Baltic languages (
Old Prussiankaupiskan “trade, commerce,”
Lithuaniankὑpczus “merchant”) and
Finnishkaupata “to sell cheaply.” In the
Romance languages, however, the word has not survived.
People with the surname or nickname Chapman include:
Richard "Ricky" Chapman/Caldwell, brother of Billy and antagonist of later Silent Night, Deadly Night films
Hedrick Chapman, minor antagonist in the Animorphs novel series
Melissa Chapman, Hedrick's daughter
References
Surname list
This page lists people with the
surnameChapman. If an
internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that
link by adding the person's
given name(s) to the link.