Rick
Usually a shortened form of Richard, though older scholarship also linked it to an old Germanic name meaning “powerful” or “mighty.”
The #7,258 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 67,250 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is most often explained as a short form of the personal name Richard, with Rick used as a familiar or clipped form that later became hereditary. Some older surname scholars also connected it with a Germanic root found in names like Old English rica and Old Germanic riki, meaning “ruler,” “powerful,” or “mighty.” In practice, the surname may reflect either a diminutive from Richard or an older name-element with the same general sense of power and rule.
History
19th-century surname dictionaries treat Rick mainly as a brief form of Richard and note that related surnames such as Ricks and Rickard belong to the same family of names. The name is also historically close to a wider Germanic stock of names built on rīk-/ric-, which helped make the form feel natural in English. In modern use, Rick is relatively uncommon as a surname compared with its longer relatives.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older books sometimes grouped Rick with names meaning “rich” or “wealthy,” but the historical root is more accurately about rule and power than money.
From the historical record
“Confused with Rich man, q.v. RICK (Teut.) I Wealthy, Powerful, Mighty [O.L.Ger. riki = O.E. ric- = O.N. rik-r = Goth, reik-s] 2 a dim. of Rickard, Rickwapd, &c., q.v. We also find one occurrence of the A.-Sax. word rica [=Goth. reik-s], 'ruler', as a pers. name.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)