Dick
Masculine · “brave ruler”
Dick is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 29,273 boys against 48 girls since 1880.
Dick is Richard put through the same rhyming machine that produced Bob and Bill. Rick came first by clipping; Dick came second by swapping the opening consonant, a habit English applied to a handful of very common medieval names and to nothing since.
How old is the name Dick?
Dick was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Dick alive today was born around 1937, making them about 88 years old. About 8,400 people named Dick are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dick most popular?
Dick peaked in 1934, reaching #138 nationally. See the whole 1934 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ricohard to Dick
The story of Dick
Richard was among the commonest men's names in medieval England, which is precisely why it produced so many short forms — Rick, Hick, Dick, Dickon. The rhyming substitution is the same one behind Bob from Rob and Peg from Meg, and nobody has fully explained why English did it to those names and no others. Dick became so ordinary that it went into the language as a word for any man at all, in phrases still current, and American families registered it as a legal name into the twentieth century.
Meaning
brave ruler
Through Richard, from the Germanic ric, 'ruler' or 'power', and hard, 'brave' or 'hardy'. The ric element is cognate with the Latin rex and the Sanskrit raja, and it appears at the end of Frederick, Roderick and Cedric.
How the name formed
- Ricohard
- Richard
- Rick
- Dick
Related forms: Richard · Riccardo · Ricardo
Pronouncing Dick
DIK
One syllable. Said identically in every English accent.
Nicknames for Dick
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19341,131 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #138reached in 1934
- Change vs 2000
- −16.7%5 in 2005, from 6
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.
Dick in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Richard in German — related form
- Riccardo in Italian — related form
- Ricardo in Spanish — related form
Dicks among us
people named Dick are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Dick has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Richard stands behind it with a thousand years of continuous English use.
- The rhyming-nickname history is one of the most interesting things English ever did to its own names.
- One syllable, blunt and completely unambiguous in speech.
- The word has been vulgar slang in English for well over a century, and that is now its dominant sense.
- For that reason the name has effectively left use, and Richard's other short forms have absorbed its bearers.
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What they receive
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Dick
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Dicks are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,400 people named Dick are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dick in 2025?
- Dick is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Dick with classmates?
- Dick will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
David#35 · Daniel#22 · Donald#690 · Dennis#707 · Douglas#807 · Dylan#41 · Danny#628 · Dale#1409
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dick? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dick and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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