Derrick
Usually a surname from the medieval name Theodoric, though in Cornwall it was also linked to a word for a sexton or gravedigger.
The #3,779 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 32,968 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Most sources connect Derrick with Theodoric, a Germanic personal name made famous in Dutch and Low German forms like Dirk and Derk, with Derrick functioning as an English nickname or shortened form. The older name ultimately means something like “ruler of the people,” from Germanic elements for “people” and “power/ruler.” In Cornish usage, however, some writers also proposed a separate local word derrick meaning a sexton or gravedigger, likely influenced by ideas of burial and earth.
History
The surname appears in several spellings, including Derick, Dirk, and Dirick, and was especially common in forms brought from the Low Countries. Nineteenth-century surname writers generally treated the name as a derivative of Theodoric, while Cornish scholarship noted a possible native local surname with a different meaning. Because of that, modern bearers may have more than one historical origin depending on family line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some old Cornish writers thought Trederrick meant “the dwelling of Derrick,” showing how the name could also appear inside place-names.
From the historical record
“A. -Sax. dicriia. DERRICK. A Flemish Christian name. See Derick. DESCHAMPS. (Now Chamier). Fr. Protestant refugees from Bergerac in Pe- rigord. DESPAIR. " Richard Despair, a poor man buried." Par. Reg., East Grinstead, Sussex, 1726. Probably a corruption of the French family name Despard.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom