Clint

Meaning

settlement on a hill (short for Clinton)

The story

Clint is the short form of Clinton, an English place name usually read as a settlement on a hill, and it packs more squint-into-the-sun attitude per letter than almost any name in the book. Its midcentury run, peaking around the 1970s, tracks the years when Clint Eastwood rode from television westerns to global stardom; we can only note the timing, not prove the cause. Soccer added its own: Clint Dempsey, the Texan forward who fought his way from Nacogdoches to the Premier League and scored at three straight World Cups for the United States, a run no other American man had managed. The name has faded well below its peak and is now an uncommon sight in US records, which arguably restores some outsider cool: short, tough, plainly American, and rarer now than its swagger suggests.

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Popularity, 1890–2024

Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Clint peaked in the 1970s and the 1980s in nearly equal measure.

When you meet Clint

People given the name Clint in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1960 to 1999. 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.

Names that fit alongside Clint

Cole Brent Trent Kent Brad Burt

The Clint deep dive

Written for you · $1.99 →

Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Clint 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 Clint fits with your family’s names and surname.

Both reports, explained →

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