Claude
About Claude
Claude is a soft-spoken French name that conjures up the pastel colors of Monet and harmonies of Debussy. In France, it is used for girls as well, in fact in the Tracy Chevalier novel Lady and the Unicorn, the protagonist is a female Claude.
Claudes have appeared in such iconic movies as Chinatown and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Actor Simon Baker has a son named Claude Blue.
A French classic, Claude was also a top 100 name in the U.S. until 1922.
The attractive Italian version Claudio is occasionally heard in this country, and Claudius is the original Latin--which could be restored in the current Latin-loving climate. While "lame" is the most widely-acknowledged meaning, some etymologists theorize that the name may relate to the word for enclosure or clause, an alternate meaning that may appeal to a child with a form of this otherwise-appealing name.
As of October 2026, Claude ranked #3044 in US births in 2025 SSA, peaked at #46 in 1887, Nameberry popularity #398.
Editor's take: The name Claude is a boy's name of French origin meaning "lame; enclosure".
Popularity & trends
Data table
| Year | US rank | Births | Per million |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | #2,815 | 42 | 21.9 |
| 2015 | #2,432 | 52 | 27.1 |
| 2016 | #2,368 | 55 | 29 |
| 2017 | #2,965 | 40 | 21.6 |
| 2018 | #2,515 | 51 | 28.1 |
| 2019 | #2,903 | 42 | 23.4 |
| 2020 | #2,768 | 44 | 25.5 |
| 2021 | #3,133 | 38 | 21.7 |
| 2022 | #3,423 | 34 | 19.5 |
| 2023 | #3,126 | 39 | 22.8 |
| 2024 | #3,332 | 35 | 20.3 |
| 2025 | #3,044 | 40 | 23.4 |
World rankings
Similar names
These 20 names were selected by our users looking for other names like Claude.
- Cecil
- Clement
- Augustine
- Leopold
- Clarence
- Oswald
- Lionel
- Sylvester
- Archibald
- Barnaby
- Solomon
- Edgar
- Wilfred
- Ernest
- Malachai
- Bartholomew
- Hector
- Virgil
- Rufus
- Wilbur
Claude on lists
Famous Claudes
- (Oscar
)Claude Monet, French impressionist painter
- (Achille
)Claude Debussy, French composer
- Claude Kelly
American singer,songwriter
- (William) Claude Rains
English actor
- Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay
Jamaican,American novelist
- Claude Elwood Shannon
American mathematician
- Claude Makélélé
French footballer
- Claude Lévi
Strauss, French anthropologist
- Claude Picasso
son of painter Pablo Picasso
- Claude Simon
French novelist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Claude Cohen
Tannoudji, French physicist; winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics
- Claude Blue Baker
son of actors Simon Baker and Rebecca Rigg
- Claude Giroux
Canadian hockey player
- Claude Indiana Emmanuel Hanson
son of American musician Taylor Hanson
Claude in pop culture
- Claude Gianni
Ray's best friend on Everybody Loves Raymond
- Claude Frollo
character in Victor Hugo's Notre,Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
- Claude Faustus
character in the anime/manga Kuroshitsuji / Black Butler
- Claude von Riegan
house leader in video game Fire Emblem Three Houses
- Claude Hooper Bukowski
protagonist of musical Hair
Variations & nicknames
- ClaudiosGreek
- ClaudicioSpanish
- ClaudFrench
- KlaudiuszPolish
- ClaudiuFrench
- GlaudioSpanish
- ClaudianFrench
- ClaudienFrench
- KlavdiiRussian
- ClaudiusGerman
- ClavioSpanish
- KolosHungarian
- CladioSpanish
- ClaudioSpanish