CLATWORTHY
Clatworthy is an English surname of locational origin, derived from the village of Clatworthy in Somerset, England. The toponym is composed of the Old English elements clat, meaning “clay”, and worth, meaning “enclosure” or “farm”. Consequently, the surname can be interpreted to mean “dweller at the clay enclosure or farm”.
The name appears in various historical records under the spellings Clatworthy and Clotworthy. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the place was recorded as Clateurde; later documents such as the Fines Court Rolls of 1127 listed it as Clatewurth, and the Assize Court Rolls of 1243 as Clatewurthy. These early forms show that the name was derived from the pre‑7th century word clate, describing a coarse, bristly plant that grew on the land, combined with worth, an area cleared for agriculture. Hence the description “the farm where clate grew.”
Locational surnames developed when individuals moved away from their native place and were identified by the name of their birthplace. The earliest recorded instance of the surname in a person is John Clateworthy, dated 1327 in the Pipe Rolls of Somerset, during the reign of King Edward. In the 14th century the surname began to appear in surviving church registers; for example, a christening recorded in St. Margaret’s Westminster on 14 December 1546 gave the name Chenybryan Clothworthey, and another in St. Botolph without Aldgate in London on 23 July 1587 gave the name Anne Clatworthey.
An early emigrant bearing the name was Mathew Clatworthy, aged twenty‑five at the time of emigration. He embarked from the Port of London on the ship “Assurance” in July 1635 bound for Virginia. This illustrates how the surname spread beyond England and entered the New World colonial records.
Typical given names associated with the Clatworthy surname
Male
- Alan
- Andrew
- Brian
- David
- James
- Jeremy
- John
- Jonathan
- Mark
- Martin
- Michael
- Paul
- Richard
- Robert
Female
- Elizabeth
- Emma
- Jane
- Jennifer
- Joanna
- Laura
- Nicola
- Rebecca
- Sarah
- Susan
- Yolanda
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Clatworthy in...
Braille
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Morse
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Semaphore
There are approximately 1,264 people named Clatworthy in the UK. That makes it roughly the 6,153rd most common surname in Britain. Around 19 in a million people in Britain are named Clatworthy.
Famous people named Clatworthy
- Robert Clatworthy - Sculptor, painter, teacher of art (1928 to 2015)
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.