Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English and French : occupational name for a clergyman, or perhaps for the servant of one, from Middle English, Old French chapelain ‘chantry priest’, a priest endowed to sing mass daily on behalf of the souls of the dead (Late Latin capellanus).
  • Ukrainian and Belorussian : patronymic from the nickname Chaplya, from the dialect word chaplya ‘heron’, ‘stork’ (Russian tsaplya), referring to a man with long, thin legs or perhaps one who was shy and easily frightened.
  • Clement Chaplin was one of the founders of Hartford, CT, (coming from Cambridge, MA, with Thomas Hooker) in 1635.