This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'of Champagne,' an immigrant from the province of that name.

Margery de Champain, Norfolk, 1345: History of Norfolk.

Robert de Champayne, 00. Norf., 1392: ibid.

Hugh de la Chaumpeyne, Pardons R., 6 Richard II.

Hugh de Champayne, Henry III-Edward I.

Robert de Chaumpaigne. 1306. Writs of Parliament.

1806. Married — John Champain and Ann Douglas: St. George, Hanover Square.

From Champagne, an ancient government of France. The name was also Latinized de Campania in early charters. Pieres de Chaumpaigne, rector of the church of Kynkel, who rendered homage in 1296 is probably the Pieres de Chaumpaigne of Fifeshire who is recorded as rendering fealty at the same time (Bain, II, p. 194,204). Rauf de Chaumpayne and William de Champaigne, both of the county of Wyggetone, also rendered homage in the same year (ibid., p. 184,206). In 1306—07 Huwe de Champane, a tenant in capite of the king of England, petitioned for 'mitigacioun' of the relief for his lands in Galloway "according to their present value, not the old valuation before the Scottish war, as they have been so wasted thereby, that otherwise he must sell them" (ibid., II, 1984). He appears to have died at this time as very soon after the daughter of Hugh de Chaumpaigne, deceased, was given in marriage in 1306—07, to Dungal MacDouyl, junior in Galloway (ibid., 1905). John Champenay in 1343 had a gift of one hundred shillings from the king (ER, I, p. 535—536), and Johannes Champnay had a remission for his share in burning the toun of Dunbertane in 1489 (APS., XII, p. 34; Lennox, II, p. 132). Robert Champane, reidare at Balmaghe, Galloway, 1574 (RMR,). See also Campania.

(Anglo-French-Latin) belonging to Champagne (France) = the Plain [Latin campania-campus, a plain, field]

(French) One who came from the Champagne (level country), a region in France.

From the French province.

From the province of Champagne, in France.

Today the Champagne families of Louisiana are concentrated in three areas of the state: (1) along the lower Mississippi River, including New Orleans, (2) in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes, and (3) in the Bayou Teche country. Although several soldiers and workers named Champagne were sent from France to New Orleans soon after its founding (1718),* most of Louisiana's present-day Champagnes can probably trace ancestry from two progenitors. One was Jean-Baptiste Champagne of New Orleans, whose background is uncertain.

The other was Jean-Louis Champagne, Canadian by birth.

Jean-Baptiste of New Orleans, married (ca. 1740) to Perrine Chauffe (Schaf), apparently had only one son, Jean-Baptiste, Jr., who by 1776 was established as a planter in St. Charles Parish.

The latter and his wife Charlotte Edelmeier reared eight sons, all of whom in turn became planters.

The eldest, Jean-Baptiste III (m.

ca. 1793 Catherine Waguespack), died in 1797, but his brothers André (m. ca. 1787 Madeleine Waguespack), François (m. Marie-Manon Albert), Élie (m. Marcellite Chauvin), Paul (m. Charlotte Darois), and Évariste remained on the Mississippi River.

After their father's death in 1803 they purchased at various times parcels of land from their mother's estate of 10. x 40 arpents (355 acres) located on the west bank just below present Hahnville.

Likely, many of the Champagne families now living in St. Charles and St. James parishes and in New Orleans descend from those six brothers.

By the 1810s, and perhaps earlier, brothers Pierre (m.

Marie-Marguerite Chauvin) and Honoré (m. Madeleine Bourgeois) moved from the Mississippi to Bayou Lafourche, settling near Thibodeauxville, where they began the Lafourche-Terrebonne branch of the family.

They were later joined by their nephews Eugène (m. Eléonore Waguespack), son of Jean-Baptiste III, and Justin (m.

1839 Marianne Degruis), son of Élie.

Church records indicate that nephew Eugène began the largest line of the Champagne family in the Lafourche-Terrebonne area.

Before the Civil War descendants of Eugène and his uncles had reached beyond Raceland and Lockport and below Houma.

However, Lafourche Crossing below Thibodeauxville was the clan's main stronghold during most of the nineteenth century, sugarcane and rice being the principal cash crops cultivated on the small farms.

The Canadian, Jean-Louis Champagne, may have lived in Mobile before coming to Louisiana in the early 1760s. Married to Marie-Barbe Folse, he settled in St.

John Parish ca. 1763 with his family of four children.

Around the late 1780s he moved to the Attakapas, where his three sons, Jean-Louis, Jr. (m. 1787 Hélène Doré), Pierre (m. 1788 Geneviève Lambert), and Antoine (m.

ca. 1794 Catherine Hulin), started a large line of the Champagne clan.

The three brothers and their offspring settled near the Poste des Attakapas (St. Martinville), some in the Fausse Pointe area along the Teche, others in the Côte Gelée west of the post. By 1790 all three brothers had registered cattle brands,15 indicating a combined agricultural pursuit of livestock in the adjacent prairies and food production on the alluvial Teche soils.

Few of the descendants have moved out of the Teche area,16 and today the Champagne families of that area form a dense cluster of over 300 households in St. Martin, Lafayette, Iberia, and St. Mary parishes, comprising a third of all families of that surname in the state