Baker

How to say it

/ˈbeɪ.kɚ/

What it means

English occupational surname from Old English bæcere ('baker, bread-maker'). Baker Street in London is the literary home of Sherlock Holmes; Chet Baker the jazz trumpeter and Josephine Baker the entertainer anchor the cultural reading.

Baker is an English occupational surname from the Old English bæcere ('baker'), one of the oldest documented English surnames. Baker Street, the London road named for the developer Edward Berkeley Portman, is the address of 221B Baker Street in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories (1887 onward), giving the surname its strongest literary anchor. Chet Baker the American jazz trumpeter (1929-1988, My Funny Valentine, Almost Blue), Josephine Baker the French American entertainer and civil-rights activist (1906-1975), and Baker Mayfield the NFL quarterback (born 1995) anchor different cultural reference points. As a US first name Baker is modern, basically post-2010. It entered the US top 1000 in 2017. Common short: Bake.

Heads-up notes

• Pop culture

  Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes) is the deepest literary anchor; Chet Baker covers the jazz reference; Josephine Baker the civil-rights one.

Who's worn it

Historical figures, characters, and public faces who share the name. The cultural surface, for whatever weight you want to give it.

• Chet Baker American jazz trumpeter, My Funny Valentine, 1929-1988
• Josephine Baker French American entertainer and civil-rights activist, 1906-1975

Spelling variants

• Bakar
• Bekker

Names with the same feeling

• Barrett Bear-strength, or 'quarrel'
• Beckett Bee cottage, or 'small stream'
• Carter Driver of a cart

See Baker from another angle