This surname is modernised as Catchpole. See list of metonymic occupational surnames. From Old Norman French cachepol, ‘chase fowl’, initially a person who chased poultry in default of money, for a tax gatherer or ‘petty officer of justice, especially a warrant officer who arrests for debt’. Reaney and Wilson, 87. Reaney, Origin of English Surnames, 160, 281; Thuresson, Middle English Occupational Terms, 145.