Clair

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  Clair— “famous”

  Clarus (bright or clear) was used by the Romans in the sense of famous, and St. Clarus is revered as the first bishop of Nantes in Brittany, in A.D. 280. Another Clarus, said to have been a native of Rochester, was a hermit, near Rouen, where he was murdered at the instigation of a wicked woman who had vainly paid her addresses to him. Two villages of St. Clair, one on the Epte, the other near Coutance, are interesting as having (one or the other of them) named two of the…

  Read the full historical passageShow shorter excerpt

  Clarus (bright or clear) was used by the Romans in the sense of famous, and St. Clarus is revered as the first bishop of Nantes in Brittany, in A.D. 280. Another Clarus, said to have been a native of Rochester, was a hermit, near Rouen, where he was murdered at the instigation of a wicked woman who had vainly paid her addresses to him. Two villages of St. Clair, one on the Epte, the other near Coutance, are interesting as having (one or the other of them) named two of the most noted families in the history of Great Britain, besides the various De St. Clairs of France, who came either from thence or from a third St. Clair in Aquitaine.

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part IV, Chapter VI (Modern Names From The Latin), Section III (From Clarus) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)