Re: Origin of the Leopard name.
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In reply to:
Origin of the Leopard name.
Chris & Jane Leopard 9/16/04
I have heard of several origins of the Leopard family name.
(1)I received a letter many years ago from someone who had traced the Leopard name back to 14th Century France - from a man named "La Porte" who moved from France to somewhere in southern Germany or Moravia.According to this letter Mr. La Porte's descendants are leopards, leiphards, leipharts, leppards, lepards, laportes, etc.
(2) Apparently there were quite a few "Leopard" pubs in England, Scotland and Ireland -and people who lived near the Leopard Pub often got the name Leopard.
(3) There is a Leopardtown in Ireland, which apparently gave many people the name Leopard.
I thought for years that my family (on my father's side) was mainly German (my father's mother's family are Moravian and settled in and around Bethlehem, PA.), but he is doing a lot of research and has traced the oldest Leopard ancestor in America to an Englishman named William Lepard who first lived in (what is now West) Virginia in the 1700's.Some of the family moved from (West) Virginia to Ohio after the Revolutionary War (I have a distant aunt, Mary Leopard, in Ohio whom I have never met), but my direct ancestors moved from Ohio back to Maryland and Pennsylvania.My father is having trouble tracing William Lepard's family in England, but he has most of the family thereafter.
More Replies:
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Re: Origin of the Leopard name.
Daniel Boucher 7/24/09