Clingan is a surname that derives from the Scottish Gaelic language. The IPA phonetic transcription for the spelling of Clingan is [klɪŋən]. The first sound represented by the [kl] suggests that the word starts with a hard, unvoiced consonant sound. The [ɪ] in the middle of the word represents a short "ih" sound, followed by a nasalized "ng" sound represented by [ŋ]. The final sound, represented by [ən], is a combination of a schwa vowel and a nasal consonant that is pronounced together to form the "an" ending.