Dirck

History & Origin

Dirck is a traditional Dutch spelling of Dirk, itself a short form of Diederik, the Dutch equivalent of Theodoric. The name is built from the Germanic elements theod, people, and ric, ruler or power, meaning ruler of the people. The -ck form carries a colonial-era Dutch flavor and turns up in early American records well before its small mid-century showing.

Dirck was never common in the United States, given to only about twenty boys a year at its faint peak in the late nineteen-fifties, though it appears thinly from much earlier. A boy named Dirck at that peak is in his late sixties today.