Baker is an English occupational surname and means exactly what it says, "baker", the person who bakes bread; it belongs to the trade names like Cooper, Mason and Fisher that American parents have carried into the nursery. As a first name it is almost entirely a US phenomenon of the past decade. Baker entered the US top 1000 in 2018 and has climbed from number 1753 in 2015 to number 217 in 2025, its best rank so far.