Dick
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Toponymic surname from mnd
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dɪk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Dick is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- SESweden1 in 2.2K(measured from records)
- NLNetherlands1 in 2.4K
- CACanada≈1 in 11K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 425 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈97,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Diggs in NZ New Zealand.
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)
Toponymic surname from mnd. dīk ‘ditch, dike’; also with bearer count 4879+833, but the text notes competition with other origins for some bearers.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Dick, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dick 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 | — | ≈97,000 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Dick | 34 |
| NL Netherlands | #175 | 7,078 | 1 in 2.4K | 7.1K | Dick | 120 |
| US United States | — | 6,350 | 1 in 52K | 22K | Dick | 425 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Dick | 50 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈5,500 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Dick | 71 |
| SE Sweden | #724 | 4,593 | 1 in 2.2K | 4.6K | Dick | 77 |
| CA Canada | #951 | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Dick | 176 |
| HK Hong Kong | #575 | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | — | Dick | 46 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Diggs | 84 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Dick 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 German, usually from adjective dick 'thick'; also possibly from Deich or Dietrich
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In English, Diminutive of Richard. John Dic is noted in Ayr, 1490.
as a nameScottish Surnames
Short form of Richard. The alteration of the initial consonant is supposed to result from the difficulty that English speakers in the Middle Ages had in pronouncing the trilled Norman R-.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Swedish, Dick är ursprungligen en engelsk smekform till → Richard. I både den rikssvenska och finlandssvenska almanackan 7 februari.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In German, männl. Vom., engHsche Koseform 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)
- Dick Powellb. 1904USAmerican actor (1904-1963)
- Dick Millerb. 1928USAmerican actor (1928-2019)
- Dick Van Pattenb. 1928USAmerican actor (1928–2015)
- Dick Clarkb. 1929USAmerican radio and television personality (1929–2012)
- Dick Anthony Williamsb. 1934USAmerican actor (1934–2012)
- Dick Cheneyb. 1941USVice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 (1941–2025)
- Dick Durbinb. 1944USUnited States Senator from Illinois
- Dick Wolfb. 1946USAmerican television producer (born 1946)
- Dick Advocaatb. 1947NLDutch association football player and manager
- Dick Schoofb. 1957NLcivil servant and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, 2024-2026
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 73 sources across 37 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 22K | #1,492 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 21K | #1,718 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 19K | #1,857 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 69 | #25,001 |
Reference works 8
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 are other forms of the name Dick?
- In the etymology graph, Rick, Ricky and Dirk are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Diederik.
- Where does the name Dick come from?
- Toponymic surname from mnd. dīk ‘ditch, dike’; also with bearer count 4879+833, but the text notes competition with other origins for some bearers. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- Is Dick a male or female name?
- Dick 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 Dick mean?
- Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname from mnd.
- How do you pronounce Dick?
- A machine transcription gives /dɪk/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Dick?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 7,078 people named Dick, about 1 in 2.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Dick compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Dick is the 175th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Dick have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 97 thousand people named Dick in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dick.
- Where is Dick most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Dick is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 2.2 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
What do you want to know about Dick?
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/dickThe 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, “Dick” — the 175th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.