John Griffin Carlisle, for whom the county was named in 1886, was born in 1835 and practiced law in Covington. He served as a Kentucky legislator from 1859 to 1871, lieutenant governor from 1871 to 1875, in the U.S. Congress from 1877 to 1891, as House Speaker from 1883 to 1889, in the U.S. Senate from 1890 to 1893, and as Secretary of the Treasury from 1893 to 1897 under President Grover Cleveland. Controversy over the gold standard in 1896 caused him to move to New York, where he died in 1910. He was buried in Covington, Kentucky.