Derrick
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the Old German personal name Theodoric, via the Low Countries; later influenced the word derrick
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dɛɹɪk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Derrick is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Uganda it is the 12th most common given name.
- UGUganda≈1 in 998(inferred from the name graph)
- KEKenya≈1 in 1.3K
- GHGhana≈1 in 1.4K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Derrick itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #411 (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 608 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 998 (inferred from the name graph)
≈510,000 named Derek, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Uganda, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Derek in US United States, GB United Kingdom, IE Ireland and 1 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the Old German personal name Theodoric, via the Low Countries; later influenced the word derrick.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Derrick counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈510,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Derek | 70 |
| US United States | #173 | 201,259as Derek | 1 in 1.7K | 201K | Derek | 608 |
| GB United Kingdom | #132 | ≈63,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 5 | Derek | 332 |
| UG Uganda | #12 | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 998 | — | Derrick | 48 |
| KE Kenya | #348 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Derrick | 54 |
| GH Ghana | #26 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Derrick | 83 |
| IE Ireland | #118 | ≈5,300 est. | ≈1 in 977 | — | Derek | 161 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Derrick is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, a late borrowing from the Low Countries of OG Theodoric; first attested Richard Deryk, Ducheman 1525 SRSx
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Variant spelling of Derek. This is the usual American spelling of the given name, but in Britain it is more common as a surname than as a given name.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A device that is used for lifting and moving large objects.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, A ruler of the people; see Theodoric
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In German, männl. Vom., Variante von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Derrick Henry Lehmerb. 1905USAmerican mathematician (1905-1991)
- Derrick O'Connorb. 1941IEIrish actor (1941-2018)
- Derrick Colemanb. 1967USAmerican basketball player (born 1967)
- Derrick Adkinsb. 1970USathletics competitor
- Derrick Baskinb. 1975USAmerican actor
- Derrick Roseb. 1988USAmerican basketball player (born 1988)
- Derrick Williamsb. 1991USAmerican basketball player (born 1991)
- Derrick Favorsb. 1991USAmerican basketball player (born 1991)
- Derrick Whiteb. 1994USAmerican basketball player (born 1994)
- Derrick Luckassenb. 1995NLGhanaian-Dutch footballer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 81 sources across 46 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 110K | #509 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 288 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 225 | #509 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2005 | 7 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 1996 | 3 | #425 |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Derrick a male or female name?
- Derrick is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Derrick mean, and where does it come from?
- from the Old German personal name Theodoric, via the Low Countries; later influenced the word derrick. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Derrick?
- In the etymology graph, Derek, Thierry and Derick are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Derrick?
- A machine transcription gives /dɛɹɪk/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Derrick have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 507 thousand people named Derek in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Derrick?
- In the United States, the national register counted 201,259 people named Derek in 2020, about 1 in 1.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Derrick compared with other names?
- In Uganda, Derrick is the 12th most common given name of 2,133 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Derrick?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/derrickThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Derrick” — the 12th most common given name in Uganda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.