Mack began as a short form of Scottish and Irish surnames that start with Mac, the Gaelic word for "son", and later became a first name in its own right. In America it has a blue-collar swagger, helped along by the Mack truck company and the song Mack the Knife. Mack entered the US top 1000 in 2012 and has climbed gradually to number 463 in 2025, its highest rank so far.