Gothic reiks) or the therefrom derived *ríkijaz "kingly, powerful, rich, prince"; from the common Proto-Indo-European root *h₃rḗǵs.

[6] The tour was the medieval Swedish king's journey, when newly elected, to seek the acceptance of peripheral provinces.

Eric is one of the most commonly used Germanic names in the United States, along with Robert, William, Edward and others.

In Estonia and Finland (where Fenno-Swedish remains an official minority language), the standard Nordic name form Erik is found, but it may also be spelled phonetically as Eerik (Finnish: [ˈeːrik]), in accordance with Finnic language orthography, along with a slew of other unique Balto-Finnic variant forms including Eerikki, Eero, Erki and Erkki.

[16] Whence come the Greek forms Ερίκος (Eríkos) or Ερρίκος (Erríkos) (both pronounced [eˈri.kos]), in addition to the direct Nordic borrowing Έρικ (Érik).

(Note some phonetically simplified modern forms may be conflated with descendants of cognate name Henry via Henrīcus, Henrik, from Proto-Germanic Haimarīks, sharing the stem *rīks.)