Soper
surname · Latin script
Meaning: someone who manufactured soap, by boiling oil or fat to¬ gether with potash or soda
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈsoʊpɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Soper is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 32K(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 36K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 38K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 359 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 16K (inferred from the name graph)
6,421 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
someone who manufactured soap, by boiling oil or fat to¬ gether with potash or soda. The name is from an agent deriv. of ME sope (OE sape, apparently of Celt, origin). Vars.: Soaper, Sopper. Soquet see Such Sorbie see Sowerby
Sources 1
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Soper counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 6,421 | 1 in 52K | 6.5K | Soper | 359 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 32K | 2.7K | Soper | 155 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 221K | — | Soper | 10 |
| CA Canada | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Soper | 106 |
| EG Egypt | ≈980 est. | ≈1 in 107K | — | Soper | 8 |
| AU Australia | ≈670 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Soper | 87 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Soper | 64 |
6,421 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Soper is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Methaqualone.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, maker of soap
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, from OE sāpe ‘soap’, a maker or seller of soap; first attested Edgar le soppier 1138–60 ELPN
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In Norwegian Bokmål, a fag (homosexual man)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In fro, dinner (evening meal)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- George A. Soperb. 1870USU.S. sanitation engineer, discoverer of Typhoid Mary
- Fred Soperb. 1893USAmerican epidemiologist (1893–1977)
- Donald Soperb. 1903GBBritish Methodist minister, socialist and pacifist (1903-1998)
- Alexander Soperb. 1904USAmerican art historian
- Eileen Soperb. 1905GBEnglish etcher and illustrator (1905–1990)
- Davison Soperb. 1943USAmerican physicist
- Gay Soperb. 1945GBBritish actress
- Steve Soperb. 1951GBBritish racecar driver
- Kate Soperb. 1981USAmerican composer, soprano, and writer
- Chad Soperb. 1991PGPapua New Guinean cricketer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 18 sources across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 6.5K | #4,976 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6.4K | #5,420 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6K | #5,612 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 2.7K | #2,809 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Kotík, Antonín, Naše příjmení (nové vydání, 1897)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Soper come from?
- someone who manufactured soap, by boiling oil or fat to¬ gether with potash or soda. The name is from an agent deriv. of ME sope (OE sape, apparently of Celt, origin). Vars.: Soaper, Sopper. Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
- How do you pronounce Soper?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈsoʊpɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Soper mean?
- Recorded meaning: someone who manufactured soap, by boiling oil or fat to¬ gether with potash or soda.
- In which country does Soper have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 6.4 thousand people named Soper, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled soper.
- How common is the name Soper?
- In the United States, the national register counted 6,421 people named Soper in 2010, about 1 in 52 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Soper?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/soperThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Soper”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.