Clementine
Meaning
mild, merciful; nickname Clemmie
Goes by Clem, Clemmie
The story
Clementine is the Latin clemens, mild and merciful, in its most affectionate dress, and its American record is two complete lives. The first: about 1,200 a decade in the 1910s and 1920s, the era that sang Oh My Darling, the 1884 ballad, fading through midcentury to near extinction, 73 in the 1970s, 70 in the 1980s. The second life started from that floor: about 570 in the 2000s, 2,970 in the 2010s, and already 3,470 so far this decade, past the full 2010s with years to run. In our records it goes to girls, about 13,500, without one recorded boy. Winston Churchill was married to one for more than half a century, the little orange is named for Brother Clément Rodier, in whose Algerian orphanage garden it appeared, and the second life is already climbing faster than the first one ever did.
Clementine in song
Oh My Darling, Clementine
Traditional (usually credited to Percy Montrose) (1884)
A miner's daughter drowns and her sweetheart mourns her in the jauntiest possible waltz, a mismatch that is half the reason people still remember it. Usually credited to Percy Montrose in 1884, though the attribution has never been settled.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Clementine peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
The Clementine deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Clementine 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 Clementine fits with your family’s names and surname.
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