Clement

← Back to The Early Middle Ages

Boy · Latin

Clement

Say it: KLEM-ent

Try it with your surname

Meaning

Latin clemens, 'merciful, gentle'.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

Gentle

Borne by many popes and common in medieval England and France.

Its wave through time

Fading since the 1910s

In the United States

020406018801900192019401960198020002020Peak 1912per 100,000 babies of that sex
  • 13,870 babies given this name since 1880
  • At its height in 1915, about 1 in 2,700 boys
  • 48 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. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
  6. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

Early ChristianLatinEnglishFrenchSpanishItalianGermanPolish

The family of the name

Other spellings: Clemens

FrenchClément
SpanishClemente
ItalianClemente
PortugueseClemente
GermanKlemens
PolishKlemens
RussianKliment
HungarianKelemen

Famous bearers

  • Clement of Rome, early bishop of Rome
  • Clement of Alexandria, theologian
  • Clément Marot, poet

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
  • Calendars of saints and name days
  • English poll taxes and lay subsidy rolls (13th and 14th centuries)
  • National birth statistics of European countries source
  • 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.