Clare Family History

Irish (Clare Wicklow and Wexford): habitational name from Clare in Suffolk (an eastern county of England), the center of a major Norman baronial estate since the Norman Conquest. The English placename probably originated as a Celtic river name meaning ‘bright, gentle, or warm’. The surname is not from the Irish county name Clare, which is either from the surname or from a place called with Gaelic clár ‘plank bridge’. Another Norman surname in the southeast of Ireland was de Clere from Clères in Seine-Maritime (France), named from the local river.

English and French: from the Middle English Old French female personal name Cla(i)re (from Latin Clara from clarus ‘clear, bright, famous’) which achieved some popularity greater elsewhere in Europe than in England through the fame of Saint Clare of Assisi (see Chiara). The English surname seems to have been interchangeable with Clear.

English: occupational name from an agent derivative of Middle English cley ‘clay’. The work of medieval clayers involved plastering a framework of interwoven twigs with mud to produce wattle-and-daub work.

Americanized form of German Kler and probably also of French Clair or Claire.