Clarke

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Clarke is a surname, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is the 8th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Welsh, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: scribe or secretary; originally a minor religious order member, later also a layman.

rarermore common
  • BBBarbados1 in 104◐
  • JMJamaica1 in 128
  • AUAustralia1 in 361

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈572K ●

across 9 countries

#181 ●

of 21M surnames

6 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
568 ●

7.0M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 397 ◐

Guyana

Spellings & scripts●

ClarkLatin · English●5.8M records
קלרקHebrew · Hebrew●416 records
출락Hangul · Korean●5 records
ক্লার্কBengali · Bangla●3 records
ᲙლარკიGeorgian · Georgian●2 records
ԿլարկArmenian · Armenian●0 records

Locally spelled Clark in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 18 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

scribe or secretary; originally a minor religious order member, later also a layman

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Clarke is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
GB United Kingdom#8621,774506K rec.—9Clark294
US United States#22562,6795.7M rec.1 in 591563KClark568
AU Australia#9232,984223K rec.—3Clark278
CA Canada#11146,395148K rec.—23Clark230
JM Jamaica#737,35115K rec.——Clarke51
IT Italy#2126,67632K rec.—listedClark77
DE Germany#36021,74123K rec.——Clark130
NZ New Zealand#720,09116K rec.—10Clark145
IE Ireland#1417,25216K rec.——Clark144
RU Russia—13,16617K rec.——Clark52
BB Barbados#111,8233.9K rec.—137Clarke91
CN China#77011,20013K rec.——Clark54

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English1.1M77%
  • Welsh123K9%
  • Spanish37K3%
  • 34K2%
  • French11K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English1,095,41077%
Welsh122,7139%
Spanish36,5493%
33,7982%
French11,4251%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Clarke is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname60K records spelled Clarke23 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Mexico, United States, Peru, Venezuela

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Carrizales, Čärrïzälës, Cârrįzåles, Cárrïzàlês, Clarké

  • a separate surname39K records spelled Clarke3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India

    Also written Clark-E

  • French surname14K records spelled Clarke3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, Spain

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Clấrkệ

  • Polish surname11K records spelled Clarke44 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, United Kingdom, Czechia

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Slovak

    Also written Clark, Кларк, Klark, Clarks, Цларк

  • Thai surname2.1K records spelled Clarke30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Thailand, United Kingdom, Laos

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written Clark, คลาร์ก, คลาร์ค, คล๊าก, Khla

69 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Clarke is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, An English surname originating as an occupation, variant of Clark.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Irish, An English name which usually stands for O’Clery in Ireland. Bibl; App

    as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

050100150200190019502000152 · 2021

Show as table
Clarke in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
18806
18815
18875
18905
18966
19038
19046
19056
19096
19106
191217
191317
191416
191539
191622
191727
191834
191928
192033
192137
192238
192330
192429
192533
192637
192727
192823
192928
193028
193126
193231
193340
193443
193534
193644
193743
193838
193929
194035
194143
194241
194339
194439
194541
194650
194761
194842
194948
195049
195148
195253
195336
195460
195560
195642
195746
195847
195950
196044
196152
196244
196353
196452
196530
196631
196740
196835
196936
197035
197124
197226
197324
197427
197518
197629
197718
197820
197911
198024
198125
198230
198335
198423
198527
198633
198722
198832
198937
199035
199135
199231
199329
199427
199546
199629
199720
199829
199925
200021
200122
200223
200328
200419
200519
200626
200723
200817
200923
201024
201123
201231
201332
201439
201549
201676
201795
201892
2019115
2020142
2021152
2022139
2023133
2024108
2025140

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 124 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

16001700180019002000Samuel Clarke, b. 1675Rebecca Clarke, b. 1886Mae Clarke, b. 1910Arthur C. Clarke, b. 1917John Clarke, b. 1942Cam Clarke, b. 1957Jason Clarke, b. 1969Sarah Clarke, b. 1972Noel Clarke, b. 1975Emilia Clarke, b. 1986

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 67 sources across 35 countries.

Official registers attesting Clarke
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202070K#466
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201068K#487
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200063K#476
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20202.5K#5,163
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 202520251.9K#36
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—909#4,812
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—909#4,810
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020893#5,163
VC St. Vincent & GrenadinesElectoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025)2025482#30
KN St. Kitts & NevisSt Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 20262026428#12
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—379#730
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—354#4,203

Reference works 7

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (Tom II: C-D)
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 364 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Clarke?
We estimate roughly 572 thousand people bear Clarke (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Clarke have the most bearers?
Clarke is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled clark.
How common is Clarke compared with other names?
In the United Kingdom, Clarke is the 8th most common surname of 1,169,970 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Clarke mean?
Recorded meaning: scribe or secretary; originally a minor religious order member, later also a layman
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/clarke

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Clarke” — the 8th most common surname in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Clarke parses inside a full name →