Origin and popularity of the name CLARK

Origin

Clark : 1: English: from Middle English clerk clark ‘clerk cleric writer’ (Old French clerc; see Clerc). The original sense was ‘man in a religious order cleric clergyman’. As all writing and secretarial work in medieval Christian Europe was normally done by members of the clergy the term clerk came to mean ‘scholar secretary recorder or penman’ as well as ‘cleric’. As a surname it was particularly common for one who had taken only minor holy orders. In medieval Christian Europe clergy in minor orders were permitted to marry and so found families; thus the surname could become established.2: Irish (Westmeath Mayo): in Ireland the English surname was frequently adopted partly by translation for Ó Cléirigh; see Cleary.3: Americanized form of Dutch De Klerk or Flemish De Clerck or of variants of these names and possibly also of French Clerc. Compare Clerk 2 and De Clark.4: Americanized form of Italian Calarco.

Cardall : 1: perhaps a variant of Caldwell via Cardwell (1). Some of the Staffs and Warwicks examples may derive from (2). 2: alternatively Cardall in Staffs Warwicks and Gloucs may be a variant of the now extinct Kyrdall (-ell -oll) and Kerdall (-oll) later spelled Curdle. Compare the spelling variation in the Gloucs examples and compare Thomas Cardall 1746 with William Curdall 1808 in IGI (Bilston Staffs) and John Cardall 1815 with William Curdle 1847 in IGI (Saint Philip's Birmingham). The etymology of this name is unknown but the variation in spelling points to an original Middle English word or name beginning in Kird- or Kerd- the latter giving rise to Card- (as in Clerk and Clark). Formally it could be a variant of the Somerset name Criddle with metathesis of -r- but there is insufficient evidence to test the hypothesis. 3: in Devon and Cornwall the name is perhaps from Cardwell in Milton Abbot (Devon). With loss of -w- Middle English Kerdewell would have developed to Kerdell and Cardell the former pronunciation giving rise to a pronunciation rhyming with the word curdle probably during the 17th century.the name is nevertheless difficult to disentangle from possible variants of other names such as those in (1) and (2) above which may have migrated to SW England from the W Midlands or further north. There is also potential for confusion between names that sound only partly alike. According to the IGI in 18th- and 19th-century Stoke Damerel Devon Cardell co-existed with Cadwell Colwell and Caudle and in 18th-century Camborne Cornwall it coincided with Cadwell and Cordwell.

More

Subject to the Terms and Conditions of Ancestry

Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 457,967 individuals with the name CLARK on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name CLARK