McLean

name

The verdict

“McLean” is uncommon French (frequency #61,685 among 5,038 “M” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#61,685
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom de famille écossais.

Corpus desk

Index FR-mclean · McLean · French

McLean · rank #61,685 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #61,685
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH Mavis

Nearest frequency peer: Mavis (-2 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « McLean »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « McLean » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for McLean
PropertyValue
HeadwordMcLean
LanguageFrench
Part of speechProper noun
Letters6
Frequency rank#61,685
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « McLean » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).McLeantombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « Mavis » (#61,683), « mato » (#61,681), « Maskinongé » (#61,680). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « McLean » est au #61,685. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

McLean is uncommon French at frequency #61,685 among 5,038 “M” headwords, classed as aproper noun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Nom de famille écossais.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for McLean in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is McLean, spelled M-C-L-E-A-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Nom de famille écossais.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how McLean appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Dans une récente interview donnée à BuzzFeed, AJ McLean, le chanteur des Backstreets Boys, a assuré que son groupe, très populaire dans les années 1990, était resté « très ami » avec les Spice Girls.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "McLean"?
"McLean" is spelled M-C-L-E-A-N.
What does "McLean" mean?
As a proper noun, "McLean" means: Nom de famille écossais.
What language does "McLean" come from?
"McLean" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "McLean", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list