Frequency: (1527)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. German (Bavaria, Tyrol) and Dutch: from Middle High German pap ‘baby food’ and Dutch pap ‘porridge’, ‘pap’, hence perhaps a nickname denoting someone who had lost his teeth or subsisted on a meagre diet.
2. Hungarian: from pap ‘priest’, probably an occupational name for someone in the service of a priest or a nickname for a pious person.
GIVEN NAMES: Hungarian 10%. Laszlo (10), Zoltan (8), Geza (7), Istvan (6), Gabor (4), Miklos (4), Tibor (3), Arpad (2), Denes (2), Imre (2), Laszio (2), Attila.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
