Family name origins & meanings
- English : from Middle English hap(pe) ‘chance’, ‘luck’, ‘fortune’ (from Old Norse happ), applied as a nickname for someone considered fortunate or well favored. Compare Chance, Fortune.
- German, Dutch, and northern French (Picardy) : from Middle Low German, Middle Dutch, Old French happe ‘hook’, ‘hatchet’, ‘pruning hook’, a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such implements or for someone who used one in his work. Compare Heppe.
- German : from a reduced form of the medieval German personal names Hadebald or Hadebert (see Happel).