[5] Clio's name is etymologically derived from the Greek root κλέω/κλείω (meaning "to recount", "to make famous" or "to celebrate").

[6][7][8] The name's traditional Latinisation is Clio,[9] but some modern systems such as the American Library Association-Library of Congress system use K to represent the original Greek kappa, and ei to represent the diphthong ει (epsilon iota), thus Kleio.

Clio, sometimes referred to as "the Proclaimer", is often represented with an open parchment scroll, a book, or a set of tablets.

Likewise, the undergraduate student outreach group for the Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania is known as the Clio Society, and the first sorority founded at SUNY Geneseo, Phi Kappa Pi, began as the Alpha Clionian literary society.

"Clio" also represents history in some coined words in academic usage: cliometrics, cliodynamics.