Koepke
Köpke (spelling also Kopke , Koepke , Köppke , Köpcke or Köbke ) is a German family name .
Origin and meaning
The name is particularly common in northern Germany, and especially in the former Hanseatic cities (Kiel, Hamburg ...). The root word Kop- is a short form of Jakob , the ending -ke or -cke is a North German form of the patronymic (father's name). Köpke originally meant Jakob's child / son .
St. Jacob was often chosen as the patron saint of the family . Correspondingly, St. Jacob or his symbols ( scallop ...) can sometimes be found in family crests.
More rarely, the origin is derived from ndt. Köppe "drinking cup / mug". See also Kopp (family name) .
Name bearer
- Andreas Köpke (* 1962), German soccer player
 - Balthasar Köpke (1646–1711), Protestant theologian
 - Christian Köpke (* 1984), German chess player
 - Christiane Köpke (* 1956), German rower
 - Christoph Köpke (* 1947), German manager
 - Claus Köpke (1831–1911), German civil engineer and scientist
 - David Heinrich Köpke , see David Heinrich Köpken (1677–1731), German Lutheran theologian, librarian, rector of the University of Rostock
 - EO Köpke (1914–2009), German painter, glass painter, creator of church windows and large-scale mosaics
 - Elena Köpke (* 1984), German chess player
 - Ernst Gustav Martin Köpke (1845–1918), Prussian infantry general
 - Ernst Siegfried Köpke (1813–1883), German educator and philologist
 - Fritz Köpke (1902–1991), German athlete
 - Gisela Köpke (* 1947), German athlete, see Gisela Ahlemeyer
 - Gustav Köpke (1773–1837), German educator, philologist and theologian
 - Hans Köpke (1911–1944), German resistance fighter and Nazi victim
 - Jörg Köpke (* 1941), German major general
 - Karl Köpke (* 1926), German politician (SPD), MdL
 - Kjell Köpke (* 1987), German handball player
 - Lutz Köpke (* 1954), German physicist and university professor
 - Pascal Köpke (* 1995), German soccer player
 - Reinhold Köpke (1839–1915), German classical philologist, high school teacher and ministerial official
 - Robert Koepke (1893–1968), German painter and graphic artist
 - Rolf Köpke (* 1949), German state politician (Hamburg, SPD)
 - Rudolf Köpke (1813–1870), German historian
 - Wilfried Köpke (* 1962), German journalist and author
 - Wolfgang Köpke (* 1953), German general
 - Wulf Köpke (Germanist) (1928–2010), German-American Germanist
 - Wulf-Dietrich Köpke (* 1952), German ethnologist