Dictionary of Family Names

KEMP.   In old English, a soldier, one who engaged in single combat.

The name Kemp is derived from the Saxon word to kemp, or combat, which in Norfolk is retained to this day; a foot-ball match being called a camping or kemping; and thus in Saxon a Kemper signifies a combatant, a champion, a man-at-arms.  In some parts of Scotland the striving of reapers in the harvest-field is still called kemping.