Cleve
Masculine · “cliff”
Cleve is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 4,506 boys against 23 girls since 1880.
Cleve is a cliff. The Old English clif produced a whole family of place names and surnames — Cleveland, Clive, Cleeve — and Cleve is the bare element standing on its own.
How old is the name Cleve?
Cleve first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Cleve alive today was born around 1941, making them about 84 years old. About 1,800 people named Cleve are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cleve most popular?
Cleve peaked in 1885, reaching #190 nationally. See the whole 1885 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From clif to Cleve
The story of Cleve
Clif place names describe the ground, and the families who lived on it took the description as a surname: Cleve, Cleves, Clive, Cleveland. Surnames became American given names in the nineteenth century as a matter of course, and this family got an additional push from a two-term president elected in 1884, after whom a great many boys were named Cleveland and Cleve. The short form peaked in American records in the 1890s.
Meaning
cliff, steep bank
From the Old English clif, 'cliff' or 'steep slope', in its dative form clife, which is what survives in place names. Cleveland is 'the land of cliffs', a district in North Yorkshire, and the Ohio city is named after a surveyor of that surname.
How the name formed
- clif
- Cleve
- Cleveland
Related forms: Clive · Cleveland · Kleve
Pronouncing Cleve
KLEEV
One syllable, rhyming with 'sleeve'. No variation between English accents.
Nicknames for Cleve
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1882
- Most boys named
- 195183 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #190reached in 1885
- Change vs 2007
- −37.5%5 in 2013, from 8
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Cleve in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Clive in English — related form
- Cleveland in English — related form
- Kleve in German — related form
Cleves among us
people named Cleve are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Cleve has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The meaning is concrete and easy to picture, which is unusual for a surname-name.
- One syllable, crisp, and never mispronounced.
- Cleveland is available as a longer form with the same root.
- The Ohio city is the first association for many Americans.
- It is strongly period-coded to the late nineteenth century.
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What they receive
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Cleve
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Cleves are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Cleve are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cleve in 2025?
- Cleve is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Cleve with classmates?
- Cleve will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Charles#48 · Christopher#68 · Carl#1132 · Christian#96 · Caleb#58 · Cameron#76 · Carlos#150 · Clarence#1499
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cleve? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cleve and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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