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Gender: Male Meaning of Clive: "lives near a high cliff" Origin of Clive: English

Clive Origin and Meaning

The name Clive is a boy's name of English origin meaning "lives near a high cliff".

Clive used to be stereotyped as a clipped British name in a pith helmet and pencil-thin moustache, as in English military hero Clive of India--but this image has been turned on its ear by hunky Clive Owen.

William Makepeace Thackeray did a lot to launch this as a first name via his novel The Newcomes with Clive Newcombe being the hero--most likely inspired by the exploits of General Robert Clive, essentially the founder of British India.

Two other notable modern day Clives are writers Barker and Cussler.

16 names similar to Clive

These 16 names were selected by our users that were looking for other names like Clive. If you didn't find an alternative name that you like better than Clive, try our name generator. It allows you to go beyond the similarities of a name, which can provide a lot of inspiration!

Find other names based on Clive using our baby name generator.

Lists containing Clive

Clive in Blog Posts

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Famous People Named Clive

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Clive Owen, English actor
Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis, Northern Irish novelist
Clive William John Granger, Welsh economist and Nobel Prize winner
Clive Eric Cussler, American novelist
Clive Barker, English novelist
Clive Davis, American record producer and executive
(Arthur) Clive Heward Bell, English art critic
Clive Ronald Burr, drummer of English band Iron Maiden
Clive Rush, American NFL football coach
Clive Robert Benjamin Dunn, English actor
Clive James Standen, English actor
Clive John "Benji" Webbe, British singer of bands Skindred and Dub War

Pop Culture References for the name Clive

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Clive Newcombe, character in William Thackeray's "The Newcombes"
Clive O'Brian, character in the video game Resident Evil: Revelations
Clive Yorkin, character on TV's "The Flash"
Clive Babineaux, character on Tv show "iZombie"
Clive Dove, character in the game "Professor Layton and the Lost Future"
Clive, Invisible friend of Garfield the cat in some Garfield strips

Nicknames & Variations for Clive

Cleve, Clyve

Comments

headintheclouds Says:

2015-10-14T22:59:00

Clive is a clipped, simple and sophisticated, perfect for those who want strong handsome to-the-point names like Grant, Dean, Clark. I've always associated this prim-and-proper buttoned-up name with a British James-Bond-like dapper brown-haired man in his forties- basically Clive Owen, I guess. It also sounds like the name of a herb to me, I think because of it looks similar to chives.

Catastroffy Says:

2014-11-19T11:58:22

I quite like this name, although I wouldn't say it was a favourite of mine.