Explore the Family Name Clarence

The meaning of Clarence

1. English: apparently from the name of the royal dukedom created in 1362 for Lionel, the third son of Edward III, who had married the heiress of the estate of Clare in Suffolk. It is a conventional rendering in French of the placename, used in parallel with its conventional name in Latin, Clarentia. These names are originally those of a similarly named city founded in the 13th century by the Norman Villehardouin dynasty in the Peloponnese, Greece, whose site is now called Glarentza, and its application to Clare in Suffolk is a kind of toponymic pun. Formally the name is a parallel, based on clarus ‘brilliant, illustrious’, for other auspicious Latin names like Florentia as if ‘flourishing (place)’ and Valentia as if ‘strong, healthy (place)’. The surname may simply have originated as a French habitational name for someone from Clare, but playing on the ducal title, or possibly for a man in one of the early dukes’ service. 2. French: variant of Clarens, a habitational name from a place so named (Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers). History: The English ducal title Clarence has been created five times, in 1362, 1412, 1461, 1789, and 1890. The first two dukes died without issue; the third forfeited his title before his son was of age, and the title was not inherited. The last two creations were in the modern era. The surname therefore has no direct connection with the male line of any instantiation of the dukedom.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.