Clemens

Boy · Latin

Clemens

Say it: KLEM-enz

Try it with your surname

Meaning

Latin clemens 'merciful, mild, gentle'.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

GentleKind

Carried by an early bishop of Rome and later by many popes, which kept it in use across Catholic Europe.

Its wave through time

Fading since the 1910s

In the United States

05010018801900192019401960198020002020Peak 1905per million babies of that sex
  • 1,616 babies given this name since 1885
  • At its height in 1913, about 1 in 11,900 boys
  • 7 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. Ancient Rome750 BC to AD 476
  2. The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
  3. The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
  4. The Renaissance1400 to 1600
  5. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

LatinEarly ChristianGermanItalianFrenchEnglishPolish

The family of the name

EnglishClement
ItalianClemente
SpanishClemente
FrenchClément
BulgarianKliment
PolishKlemens

Famous bearers

  • Pope Clement I
  • Clement of Alexandria, theologian

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
  • Calendars of saints and name days
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.