Cleve is a given name. Notable people with the name include: Cleve Benedict (born 1935), American politician Cleve Bryant (1947–2023), American college football quarterback, athletics administrator and former head coach at Ohio University Cleve Cartmill (1908–1964), American science fiction and fantasy writer, best remembered for a short story investigated by the FBI Cleve Gray (1918–2004), American abstract expressionist painter Cleve Jones (born 1954), American AIDS and LGBT rights activist Cleve Loney (1950–2020), American politician Cleve Moler (1939–2026), American mathematician and computer scientist