Notes:
The 1543 subsidy rolls record a William Repper. From 1560 onwards there are many entries of baptisms and marriages of Ripper/Repper family members, indicating the presence of family members from 1540 onwards, or even earlier.

In 1561 there is the burial at Breage of Joan Rypper of Cariurrall. In 1582 is recorded the burial of Joan Ripper wife of William Ripper.

There is no direct evidence yet found to tie all the following children together in the manner so recorded, but from the scant information available and for the purpose of generation of this report I have made the following assumptions:
the William Rypper in the muster rolls is the husband of Joan who was buried in 1561;
they are the parents of William who married another Joan. She is the Joan who was buried in 1582.

Further details of Crawle (Cariurrall or Crohall) are recorded, with pictures, under the life of Thomas Ripper (about 1600 to 1661/1678).

Breage parish church was a few miles walk from the family home at Crawle but is where many of the early Ripper baptisms, marriages and burials took place. The parish records are difficult to read and scant on information in the 1500's. It is probable that there may well be earlier generations than those shown here but I have no evidence of this to date. The church will have altered much over the years but the wall paintings are medieval and could be contemporary with Ripper family usage.

There has been much speculation regarding the origin of the name. It is usual for surnames to have been derived from either the place where folk lived or their occupation. Many people did not have surnames much before about 1500, certainly not necessary for farm hands and labourers who really did not need much formal or legal identification which seems to have been the lot of the Ripper family.

It will be seen that there occurs a John Ripper or Cariohall, meaning of Crawle; a John Ripper or Singer, probably a singer in church or known for his singing; and even a Mary Ripper or Kelly - merely demonstrating the as yet unrefined rules for the growth and use of surnames.

There seems to have grown, independently from the Cornish Ripper family another family of the same name in East Anglia. I am in touch with Debra Ripper who is researching that family and she has traced the family back to Elvedon in the mid 1500's. One of the descendants of that line, Richard Stirley Ripper, has shown that the name may derive from an association with the word 'wood'. In various European languages, he informs me, the root 'rip' or 'hrip' means wood or plank or has connections to carpentry.

I have received a letter which suggested that there were seven brothers who came from Germany and settled in Cornwall. I have seen nothing to suggest this, other than the incidence of the name Ripper in Germanic language families. This, however, is in more recent times and could just as easily be that the Germanic name is derived from the English.

The standard text in the Oxford Dictionary of Surnames shows an Adam le Ripiere in Berkshire in the mid 1400s. It also gives the origin of Ripper as being either a basket maker or fish carrier but no reasoning for this.

In Cornwall there are two places called Barripper and one called Berepper. The standard text on the history of place names suggests that this could be old French for 'beautiful place'. I have no evidence to say they lived at any of these places. It is as easy to suggest that the Cornish Ripper family seems to be a farming family and as reaping by reapers is an activity practised as a part of that occupation, that this is the derivation. This is an issue which will not from this distance in time ever be satisfactorily resolved.
Ken Ripper July 2000.