Meaning: Its source is ei rikr, an Old Norse name meaning "Complete ruler."

Nickname For: Frederick

Popularity: The name Erick ranked 184th in popularity for males of all ages in a sample of 2000-2003 Social Security Administration statistics and 443rd in popularity for males of all ages in a sample of the 1990 US Census.

Though this name has fluctuated in use, it has been quietly present throughout the last century.

Narrative: Eric the Red, Norse colonizer of Greenland and father to the explorer Leif Ericson, may spring to mind upon encountering this name in any one of its popular spellings -- Eric, Erik or Erick.

However, the name was not widely used among English-speaking people until 19th-century British fiction writers Frederic Farrar (in Eric, or Little by Little) and H. Rider Haggard (in Eric Brighteyes) used it in popular literature.