McCleary
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
McCleary is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: 1. Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Cleirich ‘son of the cleric’ (see Cleary).
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 45K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 51K
- CACanada≈1 in 52K
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
- 333 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 43K (inferred from the name graph)
≈23,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
1. Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Cleirich ‘son of the cleric’ (see Cleary). 2. Anglicized form of Mac Giolla Arraith ‘son of the servant of Arraith', or Woulfe suggests of Mac Giolla an Raith ‘son of the prosperous youth’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
McCleary 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 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 60K | — | McCleary | 3 |
| US United States | 6,554 | 1 in 51K | 6.6K | McCleary | 333 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 152K | — | McCleary | 5 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 45K | — | McCleary | 122 |
| EG Egypt | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 86K | — | McCleary | 2 |
| CA Canada | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | McCleary | 78 |
| IE Ireland | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 44K | — | McCleary | 25 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | McCleary | 35 |
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. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- James McClearyb. 1853USUnited States Representative from Minnesota (1853-1924)
- William McClearyb. 1853CACanadian politician
- Winslow McClearyb. 1886CACanadian coxswain
- Urie McClearyb. 1905USart director (1905-1980)
- Mary McClearyb. 1951USAmerican artist and art historian (born 1951)
- Rachel McClearyb. 1953USAmerican economist and philosopher
- Mikey McClearyb. 1969NZNew Zealand songwriter, composer, performer, producer and director based in Mumbai, India
- Trent McClearyb. 1972CACanadian ice hockey player
- Garath McClearyb. 1987GBBritish footballer (born 1987)
- Lee McClearyGBScottish male curler
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 9 sources across 2 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6.6K | #5,317 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 6.4K | #5,052 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.2K | #5,418 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 McCleary come from?
- 1. Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Cleirich ‘son of the cleric’ (see Cleary). 2. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What does the name McCleary mean?
- Recorded meaning: 1. Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Cleirich ‘son of the cleric’ (see Cleary).
- In which country does McCleary have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 23 thousand people named McCleary in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled McCleary.
- How common is the name McCleary?
- In the United States, the national register counted 6,554 people named McCleary in 2010, about 1 in 51 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about McCleary?
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/mcclearyThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “McCleary”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.