Stappard Family History

Perhaps for someone with a heavy stride or an awkward way of walking, from a conjectural Middle English word stauper or stouper, or with substitution of the pejorative suffix -ard, Middle English staupard, stoupard. Compare 19th-century Whitby (NR Yorks) dialect stauper ‘a clumsy fellow, a clown’ from the dialect verb staup, stowp, stoop ‘to walk clumsily and heavily,’ which is recorded in English Dialect Dictionary from Northumb and Cumb southwards as far as Derbys and Lincs.

The name was sometimes confused with Stobbart and perhaps with Stopford, perhaps for a maker of stoups. Stauper, Stouper, and Stoper would be unrecorded derivatives of Middle English staupe, stoupe, stope (Old Scandinavian staup reinforced by Middle Dutch stoop), ‘a jug, often made of leather; a measure for liquids; a vessel or container for holy water.’

This explanation accounts for the variation between Stauper, Stoper, Stooper, and possibly Stopper, but not the forms with final -d, -t, or -th, unless through false association with other names such as (1) above.