Buck is an English word name that means "male deer" and has long served as a nickname for a lively, spirited young man, from frontier scouts to the country singer Buck Owens. It fits the current taste for short, rugged Western names such as Colt and Rhett. In the United States Buck rose from number 5620 in 2000 to number 1993 in 2025, its highest rank in the available data, with 76 boys given the name.