Clem
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Latin Clemens/Clementia, 'mild, merciful'; first attested Clemens monachus 1153-68 Holme (Norfolk)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/cʎɛm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Clem is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 41K(measured from records)
- CACanada≈1 in 52K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 55K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 349 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 37K (inferred from the name graph)
8,107 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Clém in FR France.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Latin Clemens/Clementia, 'mild, merciful'; first attested Clemens monachus 1153-68 Holme (Norfolk)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Clem counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 8,107 | 1 in 41K | 8.1K | Clem | 349 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 55K | listed | Clem | 119 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 185K | listed | Clem | 30 |
| FR France | ≈930 est. | ≈1 in 73K | 39 | Clém | 5 |
| CA Canada | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Clem | 77 |
| SG Singapore | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Clem | 9 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 37K | — | Clem | 31 |
8,107 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Clem is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
,2 Short form of the boy’s name pClement and of girls’ names such as Clemence. Pet form: Clemmie (9).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, To be hungry; starve.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
English: short form of CLEMENT and of women's names such as CLEMENCE . It is occasionally used as an independent given name, especially in the United States.
as a word
In Czech, instrumental singular of clo
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Mary Clemb. 1905USAmerican mathematician
- Jimmy Clemb. 1932USAmerican actor (1932–2017)
- Ralph S. Clemb. 1943USUnited States general
- M. Clemb. 1959GBbadminton player
- Brian Clemb. 1972USAmerican politician
- Christian Clemb. 1973NONorwegian association football player
- Scott Clemb. 1984USmember of the Wyoming House of Representatives
- William Clemb. 2004DKDanish footballer
- Side Eyeing Chloeb. 2010USnot in their usual nameInternet meme from 2013
- Jay ClemUSassociate of The Residents
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 35 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 8.1K | #4,384 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 8.1K | #4,034 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 7.7K | #4,449 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 39 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Clem mean, and where does it come from?
- from Latin Clemens/Clementia, 'mild, merciful'; first attested Clemens monachus 1153-68 Holme (Norfolk) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Clem?
- In the etymology graph, Kelemen, Climent and Klement are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Clem?
- A machine transcription gives /cʎɛm/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Clem have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 8.1 thousand people named Clem, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled clem.
- How common is the name Clem?
- In the United States, the national register counted 8,107 people named Clem in 2010, about 1 in 41 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Clem?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/clemThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
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, “Clem”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.