Is Kléber a real name?
For years I have wondered if Kléber was truly a name or it was the name of something else that somehow was adapted to be a name.
I did my homework and found there is a small village in Germany called Kleve. The term Klever literally means "that who inhabits Kleve".
But it's not a name.
During the French Revolutionary wars there was a general called Jean Baptiste Kléber (in the pic) who fought once against an army of 60.000 men and defeated them with only 10,000 at his side. That reveals he was a true master in the "art of war".
But his was a surname not a first name.
I also found that there are klébers all over South America. Curiously, most of them are soccer players.
In the case of my compatriots I have my suspicions. It was only in recent times that there are in Ecuador references to Kléber, and so the only possible conclusion is that the name was introduced relatively recently. Perhaps somebody overheard the "future" name during a conversation between two tourists who were just talking about the trip. In their hippothetical conversation probably an Ecuadorian overheard the word and thought it was a name and adopted it.
I know a lot of people who have that name. It is obviously here to stay:, but still, why is it spelled the way it is with a sound so similar to the word CLEVER?
For me it's too big a coincidence.
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