Dirk
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in German: a male given name from Low German, variant of Dietrich, equivalent to English Derek
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dɪʁk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Dirk is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 43rd most common given name.
- NLNetherlands1 in 241(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 291
- BEBelgium≈1 in 519
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 399 (measured from records)
- 1 in 241 (inferred from the name graph)
≈280,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Dutch short form of Dietrich; Germanic ‘people’ + ‘power’
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
How Dirk is read(measured from records)
Dirk is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- German67%
a male given name from Low German, variant of Dietrich, equivalent to English Derek
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English20%
Dutch/Flemish, 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…
A long Scottish dagger with a straight blade.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Field, ballpark, Austin, TX
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Dutch6.5%
a diminutive of the male given name Diederik
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Dirk, 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)
Dirk 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #43 | ≈280,000 est. | ≈1 in 291 | 2 | Dirk | 304 |
| NL Netherlands | #79 | 71,805 | 1 in 241 | 72K | Dirk | 171 |
| ZA South Africa | #265 | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Dirk | 81 |
| BE Belgium | #41 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 519 | — | Dirk | 160 |
| US United States | — | 10,024 | 1 in 33K | 10K | Dirk | 399 |
| CH Switzerland | #324 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Dirk | 92 |
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: the de-duesseldorf-vornamen register; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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)
Dirk is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, Dutch short form of Dietrich; Germanic ‘people’ + ‘power’
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Dirk Jan de Geerb. 1870NLDutch politician (1870-1960)
- Dirk Bogardeb. 1921GBBritish actor (1921–1999)
- Dirk Benedictb. 1945USAmerican actor (b. 1945)
- Dick Advocaatb. 1947NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player and manager
- Dirk Kempthorneb. 1951US49th United States Secretary of the Interior
- Dirk Blockerb. 1957UStelevision and film actor
- Danny Blindb. 1961NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football manager (born 1961)
- Dirk Nowitzkib. 1978DEGerman basketball player (born 1978)
- Dirk Kuijtb. 1980NLDutch association football player (born 1980)
- Klaas-Jan Huntelaarb. 1983NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player (born 1983)
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 66 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 72K | #30 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 45K | #43 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 10K | #2,460 |
| NL Netherlands | SVB Kindernamen — annual newborn name frequency (Wayback-recovered) | 2017 | 89 | #191 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 57 | #7,800 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 21 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 19 | #2,460 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2018 | 2 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene | 2025 | 1 | #2 |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Where does the name Dirk come from?
- Dutch short form of Dietrich; Germanic ‘people’ + ‘power’ Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- What are other forms of the name Dirk?
- In the etymology graph, Derek, Thierry and Dick are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Diederik.
- Is Dirk a male or female name?
- Dirk 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.
- How do you pronounce Dirk?
- A machine transcription gives /dɪʁk/ (IPA) for German.
- What does the name Dirk mean?
- In German, a male given name from Low German, variant of Dietrich, equivalent to English Derek
- In which country does Dirk have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 276 thousand people named Dirk in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dirk.
- Where is Dirk most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Dirk is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 241 people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Dirk?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 71,805 people named Dirk, about 1 in 241 residents.
- How common is Dirk compared with other names?
- In Germany, Dirk is the 43rd most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Dirk?
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/dirkThe 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, “Dirk” — the 43rd most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.