NORMAN COOPER

Of Germanic origin, from nord ‘north’ + man ‘man’, i.e. ‘Norseman’. This name was in use in England before the Conquest, and was reinforced by its use among the Norman invaders themselves. The Normans were the inhabitants of Normandy in northern France, whose name is a reference to the Vikings who took control of the region in the 9th century. In the 11th and 12th centuries they achieved remarkable conquests, including not only Britain but also Sicily, southern Italy, and Antioch. In the Scottish Highlands it is used as the Anglicized equivalent of Tormod.

English: occupational name for a maker and repairer of wooden vessels such as barrels, tubs, buckets, casks, and vats, from Middle English couper, cowper (apparently from Middle Dutch kūper, a derivative of kūp ‘tub’, ‘container’, which was borrowed independently into English as coop). The prevalence of the surname, its cognates, and equivalents bears witness to the fact that this was one of the chief specialist trades in the Middle Ages throughout Europe. In America, the English name has absorbed some cases of like-sounding cognates and words with similar meaning in other European languages, for example Dutch Kuiper.