Brook
Masculine · “a small stream”
Brook is given to both — 3,391 boys and 10,630 girls since 1880. See Brook as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Brook was a boys' name before Brooke was a girls' one. In 1961 it stood inside the American top six hundred and sixty-three for boys, as a surname name in the same family as Brooks and Brookes; the e-spelling and the shift to girls came afterwards. The word itself is Old English and names a small stream.
How old is the name Brook?
Brook first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Brook alive today was born around 1976, making them about 49 years old. About 3,000 people named Brook are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brook most popular?
Brook peaked in 1961, reaching #663 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 5,198 places below that high. See the whole 1961 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From broc to Brook
The story of Brook
Topographical surnames — Brook, Field, Ford, Hill, Wood, Rivers — are among the oldest in English and identified a person by where they lived rather than by what they did or who their father was. Brook crossed to America with English migration and became common. Its use as a given name followed the surname pattern and was male-dominated through the first half of the twentieth century. The turn to girls came with the -e spelling in the 1960s and 1970s and accelerated sharply after 1980; Brooke became a top-hundred girls' name, and the male use collapsed. Brook without the e remains the older and more surname-like of the two spellings.
Meaning
a small stream
Old English broc means a brook or small watercourse, and it is the source of thousands of English place names and of the surnames Brook, Brooke, Brooks and Brookes — all of which originally identified someone who lived by one. The word is unrelated to the verb brook, 'to tolerate', which comes from a different Germanic root about using or enjoying. The two are homophones with separate histories.
How the name formed
- broc
- Brook
- Brook
Related forms: Brooke · Brooks
Pronouncing Brook
BRUUK
One syllable, with the short vowel of book. Identical to Brooke; the two spellings sound the same and differ only on paper.
Nicknames for Brook
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1915
- Most boys named
- 1961139 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #663reached in 1961
- Change vs 2023
- −11.8%15 in 2025, from 17
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Brook in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Brooke in English — spelling variant
- Brooks in English — related form
Brooks among us
people named Brook are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Brook
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Brook
- #5861
- Brook on the 2025 chart
- #625
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Brook went to 15 boys in 2025, but Brock is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 321, which makes it the 625th most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,236 places above the chart.
- Brock306
- Brook15
About 1 boy in 5,321 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 113,872 for Brook itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Hoke test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brook's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hoke climbed just as high around 1907, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hoke's path sketches the road Brook is walking now.
Brook sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Brook beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brook in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is an ordinary English word, so nobody has to be taught to spell or say it.
- The meaning is concrete, visual and unambiguous.
- It has a documented male American history that predates its feminine one.
- In current American use it is overwhelmingly a girls' name and will be read that way.
- The e will be added by most people writing from dictation.
- One-syllable names leave a bearer with no nickname in reserve.
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What they receive
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Brook
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Brooks are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,000 people named Brook are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Brook?
- Brook is one of 2 recorded spellings. Brock is the more common one — 306 births in 2025 against 15 for Brook.
- How popular is the name Brook in 2025?
- Brook ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brook?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Brook — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brook with classmates?
- Brook will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brook
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brook? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brook and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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