Family name origins & meanings
- German : topographic name for someone living on heavy soil, from Middle Low German klei ‘clay’.
- German : habitational name from any of various places named Kley or Klei, notably in Westphalia, of uncertain origin.
- German : from the personal name Kley, a Franconian derivative of the saint’s name Eligius, or alternatively from a Rhenish short form of the personal name Nikolaus.
- German : Americanized spelling of Klee.