The name Yorick has been interpreted as an attempt to render a Scandinavian forename: usually either "Eric" or "Jørg", a form of the name George.
The name "Rorik" has also been suggested, since it appears in Saxo Grammaticus, one of Shakespeare's source texts, as the name of the queen's father.
There has been no agreement about which name is most likely.

Alternative suggestions include the ideas that it may be derived from the Viking name of the city of York (Jórvík), or that it is a near-anagram of the Greek word 'Kyrios' and thus a reference to the Catholic martyr Edmund Campion.

The name was used by Laurence Sterne in his comic novels Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey as the surname of one of the characters, a parson who is a humorous portrait of the author.
Parson Yorick is supposed to be descended from Shakespeare's Yorick.
The name Yorick has been interpreted as an attempt to render a Scandinavian forename: usually either "Eric" or "Jørg", a form of the name George. The name "Rorik" has also been suggested, since it appears in Saxo Grammaticus, one of Shakespeare's source texts, as the name of the queen's father. There has been no agreement about which name is most likely.
Alternative suggestions include the ideas that it may be derived from the Viking name of the city of York (Jórvík), or that it is a near-anagram of the Greek word 'Kyrios' and thus a reference to the Catholic martyr Edmund Campion.
The name was used by Laurence Sterne in his comic novels Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey as the surname of one of the characters, a parson who is a humorous portrait of the author. Parson Yorick is supposed to be descended from Shakespeare's Yorick.
Yorick