Clotiel
A feminine name possibly from a French surname meaning "little cloth".
Name Census estimates that about 6 living Americans carry the first name Clotiel. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Clotiel today is around 91 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Clotiel births was 1920 (7 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Clotiel. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Clotiel is about 91 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Clotiels were born before 1945.
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Clotiel. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
6
~ 1 in 57,125,723 Americans
Peak year
1920
7 babies that year
Average age
91
years old
1938 SSA rank
#3,918
Tracked since 1920
Popularity
Clotiel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Clotiel from the 1920s through to the 1930s, spanning 2 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1930s, with 36 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Clotiel by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Clotiel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Clotiels live
Origin
Meaning and history of Clotiel
The name Clotiel is a variant spelling of the French name Clotilde. It originated from the Germanic name Chlodchildis, which was composed of the elements hlod, meaning "famous" and hild, meaning "battle." The name first gained popularity in medieval France, where it was borne by several Merovingian princesses and queens.
The most notable historical figure with this name was Clotilde (c. 470-545), the wife of the Frankish king Clovis I. She was a Burgundian princess who played a crucial role in her husband's conversion to Christianity, paving the way for the eventual Christianization of the Frankish kingdom. Clotilde was later venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church.
Another prominent bearer of the name was Clotilde of France (1759-1802), a French princess and the daughter of King Louis XV. She was the wife of Charles Emmanuel IV, the King of Sardinia, and is remembered for her charitable works and patronage of the arts.
In the world of literature, Clotiel is the title of an 1867 novel by William Wells Brown, one of the earliest novels written by an African American author. The novel tells the story of a young mixed-race woman named Clotiel, who is sold into slavery after the death of her white slaveholding father.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Clotiel can be found in the records of the Huguenot settlers in South Carolina, where a woman named Clotiel Brissac was born in 1737. This suggests that the name may have been in use among French Protestants in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Other notable historical figures with the name Clotiel include Clotiel Dorsey (1855-1929), an African American educator and activist who founded the Douglass Union Settlement House in Kansas City, and Clotiel Wooditch (1892-1985), an American artist known for her paintings of Native American subjects.
People
Clotiel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Clotiel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Clotiel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Clotiel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 6 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Clotiel going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 57,125,723 US residents.
Is Clotiel a common name?
We classify Clotiel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 22.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 71 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Clotiel most popular?
The single biggest year for Clotiel was 1920, when 7 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Clotiel is about 91 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Clotiel a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Clotiel in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.