Drake surname meaning

Drake is an English nickname surname most directly associated with the male duck. Middle English drake came from a Germanic word for the bird and could serve as a descriptive byname. Some records also connect Drake with dragon imagery or with a personal name formed from the same word, so the animal meaning is not the only historical path. Drak and Drayke are older or regional spellings. These routes share a descriptive nickname tradition without proving one founder. Nickname is the catalog type, with high confidence that the surname’s core history is a byname rather than a place or trade.