What is the origin of the name Cooper?

Question

Is Cooper a name that many immigrants changed their surnames to when coming to North America?

Answer 1

As you've heard above, a cooper was a barrel maker. It was an English name, but there was an equivalent name in many other languages. It was very common for a European immigrant to Anglicize their name. That's how many Kowalskis became "Smiths" or the Koch descendents became "Cooke". You'll usually find this change happening in the first 5 years of arrival if they came before 1893. After that, they usually waited until they were naturalized (at the 5 year mark) to make the change all in one fell swoop (which was allowed back then). The Anglicizing of names was no myth. I'm guessing that anyone who thinks it is hasn't done much research with Central and Eastern European immigrants whose names were much too long and complicated for Americans to spell or pronounce correctly in the original spelling.

Answer 2

Cooper as an English surname comes from the old occupation of a cooper - one who makes barrels, so back in the 1300s or so, you might have John the Cooper, whose children become known as Cooper when surnames were adopted.

Obviously, since most towns would have a 'cooper,' it is a very common name and most Coopers in the US/UK/Canada/Australia, etc. will have absolutely no relation to each other.

As for immigrants "changing" there names, that's largely a myth. Yes, some immigrants did change their names (perhaps Anglicizing a name), but by and large, people didn't whole-scale change their last names when coming to a country.

If your last name is Cooper, at least that one branch is probably English.

The best bet to really find out more about your family is to start with what you know and work backwards, one generation at a time. Ask your parents, your grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. Find out what they know, where they were born, lived, who their parents were, etc. Once you can get back to 1930, you can start tracing a family in the U.S. Census, which not perfect, can get you more dates, names, places, and more. That's really the only way to get anything that's not just speculation.

Answer 3

Cooper is the term for a maker of barrels, such as wine barrels. The name is derived from a time when family names were descriptive of that family's business.

Answer 4

As far as I know, it's English in origin and a Cooper as an occupation was a barrel maker.

Answer 5

Guess: a person who had a chicken coop.

Answer 6

Ask your family.