I've only known of one real person named Cletus, but he sure fit the stereotype. Many years ago, I was a manager for a fast food chain, and briefly had an employee who was an 18-19 year old girl, married to a worthless unemployed drunk who was several years older (and threatened to kill her if she left him). Due to lack of money, they were living in a shed in one their relatives' back yard -- without heat in the winter, in Northern Virginia. And the deadbeat husband's name was Cletus.
I knew a 'Hermel'....raised 6 kids in a 10 x 40 trailer home.
Worked 4 days a week in the steel mills in Gary, stayed incoherently drunk the other 3. But he'd have given someone the dirty shirt right off his back, if they needed it.