BRANDON CLARK

Transferred use of the surname, in origin a local name from any of various places so called, most of which get their name from Old English brōm ‘broom, gorse’ + dūn ‘hill’. In some cases it may be an altered form of Brendan. There has perhaps also been some influence from the surname of the Italian American actor Marlon Brando (1924–2004). In Britain the name has enjoyed a steady rise in popularity since the mid-1990s.

English: occupational name for a scribe or secretary, originally a member of a minor religious order who undertook such duties. The word clerc denoted a member of a religious order, from Old English cler(e)c ‘priest’, reinforced by Old French clerc. Both are from Late Latin clericus, from Greek klērikos, a derivative of klēros ‘inheritance’, ‘legacy’, with reference to the priestly tribe of Levites (see Levy) ‘whose inheritance was the Lord’. In medieval Christian Europe, clergy in minor orders were permitted to marry and so found families; thus the surname could become established. In the Middle Ages it was virtually only members of religious orders who learned to read and write, so that the term clerk came to denote any literate man.