Papp
A surname often treated as a short form of a personal name, but in some families it may also reflect a nickname or regional naming pattern.
The #7,953 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 74,182 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is most commonly linked to a short form of a personal name rather than a word with a single fixed meaning. In Hungarian and nearby Central European naming practice, Papp is often connected with the given-name nickname route or with occupational/religious naming traditions, though the exact source can vary by family line. The form is short and old, which makes more than one historical explanation possible.
History
Papp is best known as a Hungarian surname and is fairly common there, with bearers also found in neighboring regions and in diaspora communities. In German-language sources it may appear among similar short surnames and name forms, but that does not by itself prove a single German origin for every bearer. Because the surname is relatively short and widespread, different branches may have different histories.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same spelling can belong to more than one family history, which is one reason very short surnames like Papp are often harder to pin down than longer, more distinctive ones.
From the historical record
“The language of the Tagebuch is that of the well-informed military man of the time, as a rule grammatically correct, differ ing in this particular from the Tagebuch of Papp, which bristles with dialectal forms and inflections. The technical military terms are largely French. These have been printed in italics to…”
— Studies in Pennsylvania German Family Names