Derek
A masculine name of English origin meaning "holding the people".
Name Census estimates that about 226,565 living Americans carry the first name Derek. It sits at #258 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Derek today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Derek births was 1989 (8,402 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Derek. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Derek with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Derek is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 909 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
227K
~ 1 in 1,513 Americans
Peak year
1989
8,402 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
2024 SSA rank
#258
Tracked since 1924
Census
Derek in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 201,269 people with the first name Derek, which placed it at #274 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#274
National first-name rank
People counted
201K
201,269 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
66.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
71.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Derek
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Derek is White at 71.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (10.4%) and Black (9.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Derek described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Derek at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White71.2% · 143,225
- Hispanic or Latino10.4% · 20,886
- Black or African American9.7% · 19,446
- Two or more races4.1% · 8,312
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.9% · 7,785
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 1,615
Gender
Gender distribution for Derek
Out of the 238,769 babies given the name Derek since 1880, 99.6% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Derek as a male name
- Ranked #258 in 2024
- 1,355 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1989 (8,365 births)
Derek as a female name
- Ranked #17,482 in 2011
- 5 female births in 2011
- Peak: 1987 (57 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Derek appears almost entirely male. Of the 201,259 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Derek: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Derek from the 1920s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 73,385 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Derek by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Derek during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Dereks live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Derek, while Wyoming, Delaware, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 4,636 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Derek
The name Derek derives from the Germanic elements "deer", meaning beast or brave, and "ric", meaning ruler or power. It originated as a personal name among the Anglo-Saxon people in England during the early medieval period, around the 5th to 7th centuries AD.
One of the earliest known references to the name Derek appears in the Domesday Book, a manuscript record of landowners in England compiled in 1086 under the orders of William the Conqueror. The name is listed as "Derric" in this text.
Derek was a relatively common name among the English nobility throughout the Middle Ages. One notable bearer of the name was Derek of Yorkshire, a 12th-century landowner and knight who fought in the Crusades. Another was Derek de Lacy, a 13th-century English nobleman and military commander during the reign of King John.
In the 15th century, the name Derek appeared in Scottish records, likely due to the influence of Anglo-Norman settlers in the region. One of the earliest Scottish references is to Derek Stewart, a 15th-century nobleman and ancestor of the later Stewart monarchs.
The name saw a resurgence in popularity during the Victorian era in the 19th century. Famous individuals named Derek from this period include Derek Parfit (1842-1925), a British philosopher and writer, and Derek Jacobi (1819-1892), a renowned English stage actor.
Other notable people named Derek throughout history include Derek Walcott (1930-2017), a Nobel Prize-winning Caribbean poet and playwright; Derek Jarman (1942-1994), an influential English filmmaker and artist; Derek Trucks (born 1979), an American guitarist and founder of the Derek Trucks Band; and Derek Jeter (born 1974), a former professional baseball player and shortstop for the New York Yankees.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Derek
People
Derek + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Derek as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Derek: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Derek?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 226,565 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Derek going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,513 US residents.
Is Derek a common name?
We classify Derek as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 238,769 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Derek most popular?
The single biggest year for Derek was 1989, when 8,402 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Derek is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Derek in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 201,269 people with the name Derek, or 66.64 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #274 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Derek in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Derek?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Derek appears almost entirely male. Of the 201,259 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Derek?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Derek is White at 71.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (10.4%) and Black (9.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Derek most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Derek in the 2020 Census, accounting for 71.2% (143,225 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Derek in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Derek a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Derek in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Derek still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Derek in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Derek can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Derek?
You can see how many people share the name Derek on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.