Kämper: Last Name Origin and Family Crest

Arms linked to Kemper and its spellings were granted to individual families; our heraldry team traces which line they belonged to.

What Kämper means

Kämper belongs to the Kemper family of names, which has German roots. The family name meaning is “Champion, fighter”, the same as for Kemper.

The two spellings differ in a small detail: Kämper has “ä” where Kemper has “e”. Before spelling was standardised, one family could appear under several forms. Related forms: Kempers, Kempfer and Kempert. Kämper ranked 28,809 in the 2010 US Census, with 826 people answering to the name. That puts it among the top 50,000 US surnames.

For the full story, order the Kämper surname pack.