Meaning & History
The name of a life-sized mechanical doll created by the mysterious Doctor Coppélius in Léo Delibes' comic ballet Coppélia (1870), based on two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann. The inventor's name is possibly a Latinized form of Yiddish Koppel. Alternatively this name may be inspired by Greek κοπελιά (kopelia) meaning "young woman", a dialectal variant of κοπέλα (kopela).