Drake
- Pronunciation
- [Drake]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Dragon
- Origin
- English
About the Name Drake
Drake descends from the Old English draca, ultimately from the Latin draco meaning "dragon" — referring originally to the mythological serpentine creature. The Drake surname appears in English records continuously since the medieval period, particularly associated with the iconic English explorer Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540–1596).
The name's overwhelming modern cultural anchor is Canadian rapper Drake (Aubrey Drake Graham, born 1986, the iconic Canadian-American rapper whose career through 2009's So Far Gone, the 2011 album Take Care, and his continuous chart-topping output made him one of the foundational figures of contemporary American hip-hop). The Drake stage-name cultural anchor has driven the contemporary American Drake first-name adoption substantially.
Other notable bearers include the iconic English explorer Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540–1596, the iconic English sea captain and circumnavigator of the globe in 1577–1580); contemporary American actor Drake Bell (born 1986, the American actor of Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh 2004–2007); and contemporary American filmmaker Drake Doremus. Drake's American climb has been substantial: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1985 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built distinctive dragon etymological register, and the strong Drake (rapper) cultural anchor. The compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive Dr-K consonant rhythm. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Dragon and Drakey each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Drake and Draik have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Drake (essentially identical across English-speaking countries) and the broader Latin draco family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Drake
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Drake by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2010 with 1,877 boys named Drake (boy rank #196 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #827 for boys (299 US births). That's 631 places below its 2010 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Drake Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Drake the strongest states are Arkansas, North Dakota, Louisiana.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arkansas | #196 | 183 |
| 2 | North Dakota | #218 | 30 |
| 3 | Louisiana | #240 | 231 |
| 4 | Iowa | #267 | 148 |
| 5 | Mississippi | #300 | 93 |
| 6 | Nebraska | #312 | 91 |
| 7 | Idaho | #321 | 36 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | #339 | 129 |
| 9 | Missouri | #378 | 163 |
| 10 | Alabama | #379 | 126 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #956 | 65 |
| 2 | California | #894 | 173 |
| 3 | Florida | #846 | 151 |
| 4 | Virginia | #768 | 32 |
| 5 | Washington | #734 | 71 |
| 6 | Texas | #708 | 349 |
| 7 | Arizona | #703 | 70 |
| 8 | North Carolina | #629 | 131 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #625 | 116 |
| 10 | Maryland | #621 | 55 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Drake in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Drake?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Drake to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Drake against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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