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’.