The CLARKE surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	62,546	476	0.023	232
United States (1880 census)	13,601	427	0.027	272
Change since 1880	+48945	-49	-0.004	-40
Other Countries
Australia	21,788	37	0.133	1,333
United Kingdom	104,594	25	0.228	2,277

Top States for CLARKE by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
New York	8,461	123	0.045	446
Florida	6,574	252	0.041	411
California	5,280	568	0.016	156
Virginia	3,290	225	0.046	465
New Jersey	2,782	231	0.033	331
Top States for CLARKE by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Washington DC	302	169	0.053	528
Rhode Island	505	168	0.048	482
Virginia	3,290	225	0.046	465
New York	8,461	123	0.045	446
Connecticut	1,469	157	0.043	431

Notes

Total is the total number of people with that surname.
Rank is the position in the list of names ordered by total (eg, a rank of 1 means that it's the most common name, and a rank of 10 means it's the tenth most common, etc).
Frequency is the percentage of people with that surname.
Per million people is the number of people with that surname per million of the population.

'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 CLARKE live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called CLARKE represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called CLARKE in New York than any other state, but you are more likely to find a CLARKE by picking someone at random in Washington DC than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of CLARKE

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 CLARKE 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 CLARKE 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 CLARKE in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
Asian/Pacific	325	0.52
Native American/Alaskan	250	0.4
White (Caucasian)	41,368	66.14
Black/African American	17,625	28.18
Mixed Race	1,432	2.29
White (Hispanic)	1,539	2.46

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

Meaning of CLARKE in historical publications

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 CLARKE

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as CLARKE.

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.