Clune
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the personal name Glun
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkɫun/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Clune is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In St. Helena it is the 66th most common surname.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 59K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 237K
- SHSt. Helena≈1 in 5.3K
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)
- Sources
- 241 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈24,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
St. Helena, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the personal name Glun. This is either a byname meaning ‘Knee’, or else a short form of various OIr. cpd I). 133 Codgbrook Cobelli Cobelli see Jacob (pays de) cocaigne, from MLG kokenje, a dim. of koke cake, since in this land the very houses were supposed to be made of cake).
Sources 1
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Where in the world(measured from records)
Clune 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 | — | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 57K | — | Clune | 1 |
| US United States | — | 1,402 | 1 in 237K | 1.4K | Clune | 241 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 59K | — | Clune | 78 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 285K | listed | Clune | 68 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 412K | — | Clune | 9 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Clune | 52 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈66 est. | ≈1 in 75K | — | Clune | 40 |
| SH St. Helena | #66 | ≈1 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Clune | 1 |
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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 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)
Clune is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Latin, ablative singular of clūnis
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, buttock
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- W. H. Cluneb. 1862USAmerican businessperson and film producer
- Patrick Cluneb. 1864IEAustralian cleric
- Frank Cluneb. 1893AUAustralian historian and writer
- Robert Bell Cluneb. 1920CACanadian theologian (1920–2007)
- Wally Cluneb. 1930CACanadian ice hockey defenceman
- John J. Cluneb. 1932USAmerican basketball player, college athletics administrator, United States Air Force officer
- Don Cluneb. 1952USAmerican football player
- Deirdre Cluneb. 1959IEIrish politician
- Jackie Cluneb. 1965GBBritish entertainer and writer
- Richard Cluneb. 1987CACanadian ice hockey player
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 14 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.4K | #19,289 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.4K | #19,306 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.3K | #19,343 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Where does the name Clune come from?
- from the personal name Glun. This is either a byname meaning ‘Knee’, or else a short form of various OIr. cpd I). 133 Codgbrook Cobelli Cobelli see Jacob (pays de) cocaigne, from MLG kokenje, a dim. Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
- How do you pronounce Clune?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɫun/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Clune mean?
- Recorded meaning: from the personal name Glun.
- In which country does Clune have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 24 thousand people named Clune in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled clune.
- How common is the name Clune?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,402 people named Clune in 2010, about 1 in 237 thousand residents.
- How common is Clune compared with other names?
- In St. Helena, Clune is the 66th most common surname of 3,440 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Clune?
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/cluneThe 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, “Clune” — the 66th most common surname in St. Helena. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.