Recorded in many forms including: Sapey, Sappey, Sappy, Saipy, and Sepey, this is an English surname. It is almost certainly locational, and would seem to derive from either (the Isle of) Sheppey in the county of Kent, or from the twin villages of Lower Sapey or Sapey Pritchard both in the county of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands. The Isle of Sheppy is believed to mean the place of the sheep, whilst in Worcestershire the names are probably taken from the riverlet Sapey Brook, with sapey being from the Olde English word 'saepige.' In the sense of a river or stream this means one that was often 'sappy' or overflowing. As Sapie the villages appear in the famous Domesday Book of the year 1086. Perhaps surprisingly the surname does not appear to be recorded in Worcestershire at all. This is because it is a 'from' name or a surname given to a person or people who left their original homes and moved elsewhere. It was, and to some extent it remains, that the easiest way to identify a stranger is to call him or her, by the name of the place from whence they came. Until quite recently education was at best primitive, and local dialects very thick, both leading to the development of 'sounds like' spellings. Early examples of the surname recording taken from surviving early church registers of Greater London include: Susan Sepey, who married Wilson Bleasford at St James church, Clerkenwell, on October 10th 1608, Thomas Saipy, a witness at St Pancras Old Church on September 30th 1818, and Sarah Ann Sapey, who married George Groves at St Lukes church, Shoreditch, on December 12th 1847.

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