The cleveland Surname
cleveland Name Meaning and History
- English: regional name from the district around Middlesbrough named Cleveland ‘the land of the cliffs’, from the genitive plural (clifa) of Old English clif ‘bank’, ‘slope’ + land ‘land’. See also Cleaveland.
- Americanized spelling of Norwegian Kleiveland or Kleveland, habitational names from any of five farmsteads in Agder and Vestlandet named with Old Norse kleif ‘rocky ascent’ or klefi ‘closet’ (an allusion to a hollow land formation) + land ‘land’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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