Cluff
Usually a variant of Clough, a topographic surname for someone who lived by a ravine or steep hollow.
The #9,274 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 87,962 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Cluff is generally treated as a spelling variant of Clough. In Middle English, a clough was a steep ravine, gorge, or cleft in a hillside, so the name originally described someone who lived near such a feature. Some 19th-century sources also treat it as an Anglicized or altered form rather than a wholly separate surname.
History
The name appears in English surname reference works as a regional variant of Clough, especially in northern England. It later spread to North America through ordinary migration, where Cluff and related spellings became established as separate family lines. The surname is not especially common, but it has persisted in English-speaking countries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A clough in northern English dialect can still mean a narrow valley or ravine, which is why the surname belongs to the large group of landscape-based names.
From the historical record
“CLUFF. See Clougb. CLUNIE. Cluuy, places in cos. Aber- deen and Inverness. CLUNjST. Clun, a town In Shropshire. CLUTTERBUCK. The family settled in England from the Low Countries, at the time of the Duke of Alva's persecution of the Protestants. In 1586 Thomas Cloerter- booke was sheriff of Gloucester, and from that…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom