Clark
Meaning
clerk, scholar (occupational surname); immortalized by Clark Kent (Superman) in Superman (1978)
The story
Clark started as a job: the medieval English clerk, the one man in the village who could read and write, whose occupation became a surname and eventually a first name with a scholarly glow. For a solid century of American records it drew a level, dependable line, neither rising nor falling, as steady as its sound. Clark Gable lent it old-Hollywood glamour, but the bearer everyone knows is Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter who is secretly Superman, brought indelibly to the screen by Christopher Reeve in 1978; comics lore holds that the character's creators borrowed the name from Gable himself. In the 2000s the long flat line finally began to move, and Clark has climbed to its best decades yet in the 2010s and 2020s, a quiet classic that took a hundred years to become an overnight success.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Clark peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
459 people · the #14,200 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 500,000 · median age 17
Among people named Clark living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2000s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 52 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Clark
People given the name Clark in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1950 to 2019. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Clark deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Clark truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Clark fits with your family’s names and surname.
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