Blake

Blake is an Old English surname-turned-given name derived from two contrasting Old English words: blac, meaning pale or white, and blæc, meaning black or dark, making its precise original sense ambiguous. It was commonly used as a nickname in medieval England for someone with notably fair or notably dark complexion. The poet William Blake, the eighteenth-century English visionary, is among its most celebrated historical bearers and helped keep the name in cultural memory. It remains popular as both a given name and surname primarily in English-speaking countries, with no widely used cognate forms in other languages.