Derek

Derek has the easy confidence of a name that never tried too hard. A medieval English form of the Germanic Theodoric — "ruler of the people" — it arrived via Dutch traders as Diederik and settled into English as a quietly dignified working-class staple. Derek peaked in the United States in the mid-1980s around the top 75, ushered in partly by Derek Jeter's later fame and a generation of soap-opera heartthrobs, and now rests at 258. Two crisp syllables, a short hard K at the close. It reads unpretentious without reading small, a name that belongs to engineers, doctors, and the reliable friend who always brings ice.