Claude
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Latin Claudius, a Roman family name of uncertain origin; used also for women in French
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/klod/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Claude is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Rwanda it is the 3rd most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 434(inferred from the name graph)
- CMCameroon≈1 in 726
- BEBelgium≈1 in 818
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 413 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 434 (inferred from the name graph)
≈300,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Latin Claudius, a Roman family name of uncertain origin; used also for women in French.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Claude counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈300,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | — | Claude | 19 |
| FR France | #29 | ≈160,000 est. | ≈1 in 434 | 412K | Claude | 413 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #12 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 934 | listed | Claude | 35 |
| CM Cameroon | #23 | ≈38,000 est. | ≈1 in 726 | — | Claude | 55 |
| US United States | — | 33,429 | 1 in 10K | 39K | Claude | 409 |
| BE Belgium | #43 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 818 | 721 | Claude | 156 |
| RW Rwanda | #3 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Claude | 28 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Claude is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
French: from the Latin name Claudius, an old Roman family name derived from the byname Claudus ‘lame’. It was borne by various early saints, but its popularity in France is largely due to the fame of the 7th-century St Claude of Besancon. In France, Claude also occasionally occurs as a girl’s name.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In French, a Roman family name derived from daudus lame) which was popular as a result of having been borne by a yth-cent. saint, bishop of Besangon. Vars.: Claud, Claux, Clot. Clement
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In French, Du nom latin Claudius, dérivé de claudus « boiteux ».
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
In French, Du lat. Claudius, « boiteux »; prénom lié à une épreuve, à la mésentente du couple. Fête: 15 février (saint Claude).
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Origine latine, lié à Claudius; nom de famille romain signifiant « issu de la famille Claudius ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Claude Perraultb. 1613FRFrench architect and doctor of medicine (1613–1688)
- Alexis Clairautb. 1713FRnot in their usual nameFrench mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist (*1713 – †1765)
- Rouget de Lisleb. 1760FRnot in their usual nameFrench army officer (1760-1836)
- Claude Bernardb. 1813FRFrench physiologist (1813-1878)
- Claude Debussyb. 1862FRFrench classical composer (1862–1918)
- Claude Lévi-Straussb. 1908FRFrench anthropologist and ethnologist (1908–2009)
- Claude Simonb. 1913FRFrench writer (1913–2005)
- Claude Cohen-Tannoudjib. 1933FRFrench physicist (1933-)
- Claude Françoisb. 1939FRFrench pop singer, songwriter and dancer (1939–1978)
- Claude Makéléléb. 1973CDFrench football manager (born 1973)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 90 sources across 52 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 412K | #2,378 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2006 | 57K | #2,349 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 33K | #1,178 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 709 | #1,178 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 40 | — |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Claude mean, and where does it come from?
- From Latin Claudius, a Roman family name of uncertain origin; used also for women in French. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Claude a male or female name?
- Claude is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Claude?
- In the etymology graph, Marie-Claude is a form of the same name in other languages; Claudine is a recorded short or pet form.
- In which country does Claude have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 303 thousand people named Claude in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled claude.
- How common is the name Claude?
- In the United States, the national register counted 33,429 people named Claude in 2020, about 1 in 10.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Claude compared with other names?
- In Rwanda, Claude is the 3rd most common given name of 862 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Claude?
- A machine transcription gives /klod/ (IPA) for French.
What do you want to know about Claude?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/claudeThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Claude” — the 3rd most common given name in Rwanda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.