Clyde - Origin and Meaning of the name

[ 1 syll. cly-de, cl-yde ] The boy name Clyde is pronounced KLAYD ^KEY. Clyde's origin is Scottish, and its use, English and Scottish. Clyde has the meaning 'washer'. The first name is derived from the name of the River Clyde, a major river which runs through Glasgow in south-west Scotland. The river name is of pre-Roman origin; it could be from the name of a Celtic goddess with the meaning 'washer'. The given name was first used in the 19th century, both in Scotland and in the USA. In the latter case, it was initially common with southern Afro-Americans working for land owners of Scottish descent, but its use has gained ground among the general population by the end of the 20th century. The name was somewhat popularized by the cult following of the film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) which portrayed the life of Clyde Barrow (1909-1934) the US bank robber, and also by the fictional Clyde Griffiths from the Theodore Dreiser novel An American Tragedy (1925).

A variant form of Clyde is the Hawaiian Kalaila.

Clyde is uncommon as a baby name for boys. At the modest height of its usage in 1905, 0.331% of baby boys were given the name Clyde. Its ranking then was #53. The baby name has since substantially fallen in popularity, and is of only irregular use today. Within all boy names in its group, Clyde was nonetheless the most popular in 2007. The name Clyde has predominantly been a boy name, although it has also been given to girls in the past century. Boys named Clyde outnumbered girls by 48 times in 1932.

Baby names that sound like Clyde include the English Claud, the French Claude, the English Colt, the Scandinavian Keld, the Scandinavian Kjeld, the Arabic Khalid, the Basque Koldo, the Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish Claudio, the Romanian Claudiu, the Portuguese Cláudio, and the Polish Klaudiusz.

^KEY: Pronunciation for Clyde: K as in "key (K.IY)" ; L as in "lee (L.IY)" ; AY as in "hide (HH.AY.D)" ; D as in "dee (D.IY)"

There are no famous persons named Clyde.

Popularity Trend
for Clyde
from 1900 to 2007

Variant Popularity Chart
for Clyde
in 2007