(www.roperld.com)
Old English saying: Trust not the roper to craft his own noose.
The Ropers of Sterling and Rutland, by Ella E. Roper, 1904
(available from
Higginson
Books: http://www.higginsonbooks.com):
"The name of Roper has
been evolved from a somewhat fantastic origin. ... our first known ancestor,
one Musard, (probably of Norman descent) becomes Hasculphus. His
grandson, William of Miserden, Gloucester County, assumed the title
De Rubra Spatha, or Red Sheath, in the time of Henry III [Ed:1216-1272].
This was shortened into Rospeare and passed through the various stages
of Rousper, Rooper, Ropere and Roper, to the last
of which the family has held."
"The name of this family has been variously written; for from Musard it changed to Rubra Spatha, Roper, Ropere and Roper, as observed by Mr. Philipot, in his Survey of Kent, under the title of St. Dunstan's, in Canterbury (the ancient seat of the family).
Hasculphus Musard, Lord of Stavely, in Derbyshire, was father to
Richard Musard, who died 33 Henry II [Ed:1154+33=1176] and had two sons:
1. Hasculphus, who enjoyed the paternal estates.
2. William, who assumed the name of Rosper, or de Rubra Spatha (as written in old dateless evidences)".
Some books state that the surname Roper was applied to people who made ropes.
The Roper male-lines Y-chromosome project has shown that there are 26 (as of August 2006) unrelated Roper families for which a member has been tested. (See http://www.roperld.com/RoperGenetics.htm .) Just in Suffolk alone 8 unrelated Roper families have been tested. I suspect that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unrelated Roper families in Great Britain.
There, indeed, is the well-known armigerous Roper family from Kent. (See http://www.roperld.com/RoperEngland.htm and http://www.roperld.com/teynham.htm .) I have not been able to persuade a male-line descendant of that family to be tested yet, so we do not know if one of the 26 tested unrelated Roper lines is that line.
Undoubtedly, most of the hundreds or thousands of unrelated Roper lines got their surnames because they made ropes.
The surname Raper:
http://www.the-black-country.co.uk/bcs_articles/surnames.htm :This
is a surname which suggests the lowest form of man in today's times. It is
simply a corruption of ROPER, "a maker of ropes". RAPER is a north of England
surname, its pronunciation is actually nearer to the original than that of
southern ROPER.
Several persons with the surname Raper have changed it to
Roper.
There are many people of Cherokee ancestry with the surname
Raper.
E-mail from Jacqui Lay:
I was looking at your web site about the Roper name and noted you mention that the name Raper comes from Roper - maker of ropes - this I believe is not the case. I am sure that there are many Ropers whose name does stem from the meaning 'maker of ropes' however Raper has a different meaning.
My father always told us as children that our name, Raper, came from a measurement - Rape and the Raper measured the Rapes. The measurement Rape is a about an acre and was the size of land people farmed in Britain when strip farming was being undertaken during the Saxon period. The Rapes were measured out by the Raper using a rope with knots in to ensure the correct amount of land was allocated to each farmer.
There is also another meaning for the word Rape in Britain again related to land and measurement. The Rapes of Sussex were administrative areas dating back again to the Saxon period.
Other meanings for the word Rape in Britain are a plant, Brassica Napus - commonly seen growing in the fields today - and also the residue of grapes, after the juice has been extracted, used as a filter in making vinegar.
In the 1990 US census the frequency of
ocurrence of the Roper surname was 0.008% with rank 1608.
Map of the distribution of people with the surname Roper in
the 1850-1990 U.S. censuses.
In
England the rank is 763
Roper surname frequencies in Britain:
