Clois
Masculine
Clois is given to both — 725 boys and 271 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Clois arrived and left inside a single generation, and it was given mostly to sons, with a real minority of daughters. Nothing in the record says where it came from. What sits nearest to it in English is a verb that has changed its meaning almost beyond recognition.
How old is the name Clois?
Clois first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Clois alive today was born around 1932, making them about 93 years old. About 200 people named Clois are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clois most popular?
Clois peaked in 1930, reaching #1190 nationally. See the whole 1930 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Clois
The English verb cloy now means to sicken someone with sweetness, and it used to mean to drive a nail. It came from an Old French word for nailing, and its first job in English was brutal and specific: to cloy a horse was to lame it by driving a nail wrong when shoeing it, and to cloy a gun was to spike it so the enemy could not fire it. The sense of stopping something up survived when the nail did not, and stopping something up became filling it too full, and filling it too full became the sugar sense we have now. Clois is not that word and does not descend from it. But the two sit a letter apart on the page, and a name with no documented parent tends to be read by whatever it resembles.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source has been documented. Clovis, Cloyd and Cloyce are all in the American record in the same decades, and this spelling could be a respelling of any of them or a build of its own. The resemblance to the verb cloy is a coincidence of spelling.
Pronouncing Clois
KLOYSS
One syllable. The oi is read as the ordinary English diphthong, so the name rhymes with voice, and the final s is unvoiced.
Nicknames for Clois
Limited
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
- 1913
- Most boys named
- 193035 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1190reached in 1930
- Change vs 1971
- −16.7%5 in 1975, from 6
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.
Cloiss among us
people named Clois 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
Clois sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- One syllable is short, carries across a room, and is hard to mishear.
- The spelling is phonetic by English rules and needs no explanation.
- It has no living association with anyone famous, which leaves the name to the child.
- It was recorded for both sons and daughters, so the name signals nothing about which.
- Cloyce, Cloyd and Clovis will all be written for it.
- Nothing is documented about its origin, so the meaning question has no answer.
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Clois
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Cloiss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Clois are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Clois in 2025?
- Clois is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Clois with classmates?
- Clois 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 Clois? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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