TAYLOR CLARK

Transferred use of the surname, in origin an occupational name for a tailor (Anglo-Norman taillour, a derivative of taillier ‘to cut’, Late Latin taleare). Use as a given name was influenced by the U.S. president Zachary Taylor (1784–1850), hero of the Mexican War. As a girl's name it became well established in North America in the 1980s and has since also taken root in Britain.

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.