Nicknames for Andrew
29 ideas for Andrew — the short forms people actually use, plus cute, funny and gamer versions. Copy any of them in one click.
- Andy the affectionate standard
- Drew the back clip, sleek and modern
- Andie the unisex spelling
- Dru the alternative spelling of Drew
- Andz the texting spelling
- Andrea the Italian form, male in Italy
- Andrés the Spanish form
- Andrei the Russian and Romanian form
- André the French and Portuguese form
- Andrzej the Polish form
- Andreas the Greek and German form
- Andrii the Ukrainian form
- Andras the Hungarian form
- Anders the Scandinavian form
- Andrusha the Russian affectionate form
- Jedrek the Polish affectionate form
- Ando the Australian stretch
- A initial only, in group chats
- Andy-Bear the family affectionate pattern
- Andy-Pandy the rhyming nursery version
- Drewski the mock-Slavic ribbing form
- Saint Andy the patron of Scotland, said with a nod
- Big Drew the team-sport version
- Dandy Andy the rhyming tease, said fondly
- Andrik the Slavic affectionate ending
- Andres The Spanish form of Andrew.
- Andre Andrew, cut where people naturally stop saying it.
- Atomic Andrew Shares the "A" sound with Andrew.
- Randy A short form people genuinely use for Andrew.
About the name Andrew.
Greek andreios means manly or courageous, and the apostle who carried it fished for a living before Peter, his brother, brought him into the story. He ended up patron saint of Scotland, Russia and Greece simultaneously, which explains why the name spread across three Christian traditions that otherwise share very little. The American pattern is a broad plateau rather than a spike, climbing slowly out of the 1950s, sitting comfortably in the top twenty from the late 1970s into the 1990s, and easing back since. Its two short forms pull in opposite directions. Andy is boyish, soft and a little retro, while Drew, cut from the tail instead of the head, sounds adult and has worked as a standalone name for decades.
Reliable rather than striking, the sort of name that never draws comment in either direction. Two syllables with a long vowel at the end keep it from sounding heavy. Drew gives bearers an unusually clean escape route into something cooler, which is rare among names of this vintage.
Most popular around 1990. Based on US birth records.
- Origin
- Greek
- Meaning
- manly, brave
- Syllables
- An·drew
- Used as
- a boys’ name
Andrew around the world.
These are the real forms Andrew takes in other languages, which often make excellent nicknames in their own right.
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Andrea
Italian
-
Andres
Spanish
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Andrei
Russian
-
Andre
French
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Andrzej
Polish
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Andreas
Greek
Famous people called Andrew.
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Andrew Carnegie
Scottish-American steel magnate and philanthropist
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Andrew Jackson
seventh US president
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Andrew Wyeth
American realist painter
Questions about the name Andrew
Andy or Drew? +
They signal different things. Andy is the older default, warm and slightly juvenile, common among men born before 1985. Drew took off later and reads as sharper and more adult. Plenty of bearers switch from one to the other somewhere around university.
Where does Andrew come from? +
Greek, from andreios, meaning manly or brave, which is built on aner, the word for man. It was already a common Greek personal name before the apostle carried it into Christian use, and it reached English through Latin Andreas.
Is Andrew still given to babies? +
Moderately. It has declined from its 1980s and 1990s peak but not collapsed, and it remains within the top hundred. Its fall has been slower than Nicholas or Christopher from the same cohort, largely because it never spiked as high to begin with.
Are there one-syllable options? +
Drew is the obvious one and works well enough that many people assume it is the legal name. Beyond that the pickings are slim, since the opening syllable cannot stand alone in English. Dru is a spelling variant rather than a separate option.