EARL CLARK

North American: from the title originally adopted as a nickname parallel to Duke, King, etc. The title was used in England in Norman times as an equivalent of the French comte ‘count’ it is from Old English eorl ‘warrior, nobleman, prince’. In some cases the given name may have been taken from the surname Earl, which was originally either a nickname or a term denoting someone who worked in the household of an earl.

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.