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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German : habitational name from Kleve (earlier Cleve) in Rhineland. The place name probably derives from an old topographic term cleve ‘swamp’.
  • variant of Klever 2 and 3.
  • Norwegian : habitational name from any of numerous farmsteads named Kleiva, from Old Norse kleif, klif ‘cliff’, ‘rocky ascent with a road or path’.

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