Clovis (given name)

Clovis is the modern conventional French (and thence English) form of the Old Frankish name ᚺᛚᛟᛞᛟᚹᛁᚷ (in runic alphabet) or *"Hlōdowik" or "Hlōdowig" (in Latin alphabet), equivalent to the modern forms Louis (French), Lodewijk (Dutch), Lewis (English), and Ludwig (German).

Based on the attested forms, the Frankish name is generally reconstructed as *Hlodowig. The commonly accepted interpretation derives it from two Proto-Germanic elements,*hlūdaz ('loud, famous') and *wiganą ('to battle, to fight'), which underlies the traditional translation of Clovis's name as 'famous warrior' or 'renowned in battle'.¹²³

Linguist Reinder van der Meulen has questioned whether the traditional derivation from Proto-Germanic hlūd- ('famous') fully accounts for the vocalism found in the Merovingian forms. He notes that Gregory of Tours consistently writes Chlodo- with 'o', even though he uses 'u' elsewhere for names that etymologically contain u (e.g., Fredegundis, Guntchramnus, Arnulfus). On this basis, van der Meulen proposes that the first element might instead reflect a stem lod- ('to take booty, to plunder'), which would yield an interpretation of *Hlodowig as 'warrior for booty'. He further suggests that this interpretation would avoid the semantic redundancy that would occur in the name Chlodomer if both elements (traditionally analysed as hlūd- and -mērijaz, each meaning 'famous') were assumed to belong to the same semantic field.³

• Clovis I (c. 466 – 511), the first king of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler
• Clovis II (637 – c. 658), king of Neustria and Burgundy
• Clovis III (reigned 675–676), the king of Austrasia
• Clovis IV (682–695), the sole king of the Franks from 691 until 695
• Clovis (died 580), son of Chilperic I and Audovera, assassinated by his father and stepmother
• Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, King of Aquitaine from 781 and sole ruler of the Franks 814–840, but counted as "Louis I of France" even though West Francia (the nucleus of the later kingdom of France) was formed only after his death.

Because of the importance of Clovis I in the national historiography of France, the form Clovis has been occasionally revived beginning in the 19th century. Chlodwig is a variant of Clovis.

• Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1819–1901)
• Clovis Hugues (1851–1907), French author
• Chlodwig, Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal-Barchfeld (1876–1954)
• Clovis Trouille (1889–1975), French painter
• Clovis-Thomas Richard (1892–1976), Canadian politician
• Clovis Renaison (1892–1989), French Senator
• Clovis E. Byers (1899–1979), American general
• Clovis Maksoud (1926–2016), American diplomat and journalist
• Clovis Cornillac (born 1967), French actor
• Clovis Kamdjo (born 1990), Cameroonian football player

• Clovis la Britannia, a character in the anime series Code Geass
• Clovis, the main antagonist in the 1997 Blade Runner video game
• Clovis Sangrail, a character in the short stories of Saki
• Clovis Dardentor, the protagonist in the Jules Verne's novel of the same name
• Clovis, a minor character in Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series
• Clovis, a major supporting character in Keith Knight's Woke series
• Rush Clovis, supporting character in the Star Wars Universe who appears in Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• Clovis Bray, a character appearing in the lore of the games Destiny and Destiny 2 and later revealed as a character in Destiny 2: Beyond Light