# Cleaver (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/cleaver/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname from Middle English.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | occupational, named after the work an ancestor did |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 4,509 |
| US rank (2010) | 7,387 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 68,473 people |
| Change since 2000 | +0.7% (4,476 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

Occupational surname for someone who split wood, from Middle English clevere (“one who cleaves”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Cleaver in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 84% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 10% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.1% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.6% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.7% |
| Two or more races | 1.8% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Cleaver in the United States.

## People named Cleaver

- Eldridge Cleaver, American activist (1935–1998)
- Kathleen Neal Cleaver, American activist (born 1945)

## Similar surnames

Clover, Clever, Clapper, Cleverly, Colbert, Clifford, Calvert, Culver, Culbertson, Colburn, Calabrese, Claiborne.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.