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Northern English and Scottish: habitational name from a place called Copeland, of which there is an example in Cumbria, or from Coupland in Northumberland, both named with Old Norse kaupa-land ‘bought land’, a feature worthy of note during the early Middle Ages, when land was rarely sold, but rather held by feudal tenure and handed down from one generation to the next

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(Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press)

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