Name Awesome

Deke

Boys' name

Literal meaning not recorded

Deke has been given to 224 babies in the U.S. since 1949. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1976, with 16 recorded.

Babies named Deke, 2022

1 in 423,000

Deke over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Deke: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Deke means

Deke is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Deke is used in English.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Deke is pronounced /diːk/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 224 boys were recorded with the name Deke between 1949 and 2022. Its highest annual count was 16 in 1976; its best national rank was #2,631 in 1976.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Deke?

Deke had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2022
1 in 423,000
8 of 3,385,755 births
Among boys only
1 in 218,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2022
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
293,354 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Deke sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2022 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 293,354 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Deke. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Dekes were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Deke was born before 1979 — so the typical Deke is around 46 today.

Median birth year
1979
About 46 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
39.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
17.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
219
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 39.7% of all recorded uses (89).

Is Deke rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1976 (16)
Years since peak
49
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,631
1976

Spellings of Deke

Deke is not the most common spelling — Luke is, with 15.4% against Deke's 0.01%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Deke is used

Across 1910–2025, Deke was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 2,652,691 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Texas1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Deke has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Deke around the world

Where Deke ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • South Australia
    1980–1986
    #460
    in 1986

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Deke by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,631
1976
Peak year
1976
16 that year
First recorded
1949
Last recorded
2022
All-time count
224
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Deke

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

DeklenDekkerDekaiDeklinDekariDekhariDeklynDekotaDekerDekenDeklanDerekeMalekeDekarriDekodaDekelDekonDekanTyrekeDekwanZekeDekinDekobeDekwon

Sibling names for Deke

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Deke

Top names of 1976, Deke's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1976Boys' names starting with D