Clark
- Pronunciation
- [Clark]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Cleric: Secretary.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Clark
Clark descends from the Old English clerec, ultimately from the Latin clericus meaning "clergyman" or "scholar" — referring originally to the medieval clergy who were the primary literate class in pre-Reformation Europe. The name first appears as an English surname referring to those engaged in clerical work or to those who could read and write.
The name's overwhelming modern cultural anchor is the iconic Clark Kent — the secret civilian identity of Superman, the foundational American superhero character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938. The Clark Kent name has been continuously used across DC Comics, multiple film and TV adaptations including the 1978 Christopher Reeve films, Smallville 2001–2011, the 2013 Man of Steel film, and Superman & Lois 2021–present.
Other notable bearers include American adventurer William Clark (using Clark as a surname, 1770–1838, the iconic American explorer and co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804–1806); American actor Clark Gable (using Gable as a surname, 1901–1960, the iconic Hollywood Golden Age actor of Gone with the Wind 1939); and the contemporary American basketball player Caitlin Clark (using Clark as a surname). Clark held a US top-200 boys' rank from 1880 through 1955 and remains in steady use today, currently sitting in the US top 300 boys' rank. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the strong Clark Kent/Superman cultural anchor, and the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive Cl-rk consonant rhythm. The name reads as both classical-medieval and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Clarkie and Cy each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Clark and Clarke have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Latin clericus.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Clark
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Clark by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2015 with 868 boys named Clark (boy rank #372 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #377 for boys (837 US births). That's 5 places below its 2015 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Clark Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Clark the strongest states are Alaska, Utah, Maine.
Strongest boys-name states
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #648 | 90 |
| 2 | Georgia | #507 | 184 |
| 3 | New York | #494 | 298 |
| 4 | Florida | #484 | 320 |
| 5 | South Carolina | #483 | 89 |
| 6 | Alabama | #480 | 91 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #476 | 104 |
| 8 | Arizona | #474 | 130 |
| 9 | California | #461 | 676 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #459 | 87 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Clark in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clarke | Cleric: Secretary. | Male | English |
Looking for names like Clark?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Clark to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Clark against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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