The history of your name

The CLARK surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 548,369 25 0.203 2,033
United States (1880 census) 137,400 16 0.275 2,748
Change since 1880 +410969 -9 -0.072 -715
Other Countries
Australia 22,742 31 0.139 1,391
United Kingdom 101,038 27 0.22 2,200
Top States for CLARK by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 39,427 47 0.116 1,164
Texas 35,942 39 0.172 1,724
Florida 31,830 28 0.199 1,992
Ohio 26,907 15 0.237 2,370
New York 23,550 23 0.124 1,241
Top States for CLARK by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Vermont 2,205 5 0.362 3,622
Mississippi 10,166 19 0.357 3,574
Maine 4,527 7 0.355 3,551
Kentucky 13,230 15 0.327 3,273
Tennessee 17,060 21 0.300 2,999

Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called CLARK live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called CLARK represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called CLARK in California than any other state, but you are more likely to find a CLARK by picking someone at random in Vermont than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of CLARK

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Status Name

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the CLARK surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the CLARK surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of CLARK in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Caucasian) 421,367 76.84
Black/African American 101,613 18.53
White (Hispanic) 9,213 1.68
Mixed Race 8,774 1.6
Native American/Alaskan 5,155 0.94
Asian/Pacific 2,248 0.41

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the CLARK surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of CLARK in historical publications

Clerk, a clergyman, a scholar, one who can read and write.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.


CLARK. CLARKE. Lat. clericus. Fr. Le Cletc. A learned person — that is, one who could in old times read and write — accomplishments not so rare, after all, as Ave are sometimes induced to think, since this is among the commonest of surnames. Clark stands 27th and Clarke 39th in the Eegistrar General's comparative list: and for 33,557 Smiths registered within a given period, there were 12,229 Clarks and Clarkes. Thus for every three hammermen we have at least one ' ready writer.' If the Reg. General had reckoned Clark and Clarke as one name, it would have stood nmtJt, in point of numerousness. As a surname, Clarke appears frequently to have aliased some other appellative; for instance the baronet family, C. of Sal ford, originally Woodchurch, from the parish of that name in Kent, soon after the Conquest became Clarkes (Le Clerc) in consequence of a marriage with an heiress, and the family for some generations wrote themselves " Woodchurch alias Le Clerc," and Vice versa, until at length the territorial appellation succumbed to the professional one, which was right, for .

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to CLARK

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as CLARK.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for CLARK

The following words are slight variants of CLARK that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.