Derek
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Germanic ‘people ruler’; form of Theodoric, with related forms in Old French, Dutch, and English
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dɛɹɪk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Derek 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.
- IEIreland≈1 in 977(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1K
- USUnited States1 in 1.7K
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 Derek 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 977 (inferred from the name graph)
≈510,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Derrick in KE Kenya, GH Ghana, UG Uganda.
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)
Germanic ‘people ruler’; form of Theodoric, with related forms in Old French, Dutch, and English.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Derek 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 | 201,259 | 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)
Derek 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 French, English form of Germanic Theodoric, 'ruler of the people'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, The name of a 5th-century 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 English, Cornish: of the oak trees; Irish Gaelic: redheaded
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Germanic, ‘people ruler’. This is a form of the name Theodoric. Old French Terrick, Dutch Dirk and English Derrick are related forms. Derek was introduced into England by Flemings and it occurs there from the fifteenth century onwards. It has been revived in England in modern times and has spread to Ireland, where it is now quite common.
as a nameIrish first names
From a Low German form of Theodoric (see Terry), introduced to Britain during the Middle Ages by Flemish weavers. Variants: Dereck, Der(r)ick. Pet form: Del.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
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)
- Derek Harold Richard Bartonb. 1918GBEnglish organic chemist (1918–1998)
- Derek Walcottb. 1930LCSaint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright (1930–2017)
- Derek Jacobib. 1938GBEnglish actor (born 1938)
- Temuera Morrisonb. 1960NZnot in their usual nameNew Zealand actor
- Derek Mearsb. 1972USAmerican actor
- Derek Fisherb. 1974USAmerican basketball player and coach
- Derek Jeterb. 1974USAmerican former professional baseball player, author, bussinessman and baseball broadcasters
- Derek Lukeb. 1974USAmerican actor
- Derek Boatengb. 1983GHGhanaian footballer
- Derek Houghb. 1985USAmerican dancer
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 90 sources across 44 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 201K | #274 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.2K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 246 | #274 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2011 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 3 | #727 |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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
- What does the name Derek mean, and where does it come from?
- Germanic ‘people ruler’; form of Theodoric, with related forms in Old French, Dutch, and English. Recorded by Irish first names.
- Is Derek a male or female name?
- Derek 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.
- In which country does Derek have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 507 thousand people named Derek in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled derek.
- What are other forms of the name Derek?
- In the etymology graph, Del, Terry and Derrick are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Derek?
- 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 Derek compared with other names?
- In Uganda, Derek is the 12th most common given name of 2,133 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Derek?
- A machine transcription gives /dɛɹɪk/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Derek?
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/derekThe 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, “Derek” — the 12th most common given name in Uganda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.