Dick
A short form of Richard that became a surname in medieval England and Scotland.
The #1,718 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 14,756 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Dick is a medieval pet form of the personal name Richard. The name Richard comes from Germanic roots meaning roughly “powerful” or “hardy ruler,” and Dick developed as one of its familiar short forms alongside Hick. In surname use, it began as a nickname or identifying byname and then became hereditary.
History
19th-century surname scholars such as Bardsley and Lower treated Dick as a straightforward derivative of Richard, and they also linked related surnames such as Dickson, Dickens, and Dickins to the same source. The surname is well established in both England and Scotland, and it remains more common as a surname than as a given name. In some cases it may overlap with other surnames or nicknames, but the Richard derivation is the standard explanation.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bardsley noted that Dick was one of the “nicks” or shortened forms of Richard that helped generate a surprisingly large family of surnames.
From the historical record
“Disa, from Goth, deh, wise. DICK. See Richard. DICKENS. The same as Digons, which see. DICKER. A district in Sussex, formerly an extensive waste. Ate Dykere occurs temp. Edw. III. among the Barons of the Cinque Ports, and le Dykere some years earlier, in the same county. DICKESOX. See Richard.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom