There are several places called Tracy in Northern France and there are themselves a combination of the Gaulish male's name Draccios or Latin Thracius and the well identified Celtic suffix -Äko (place, property). While the name is unisex, within the United Kingdom it is more generally considered to be a female name. This may, in part, be due to its association with the  Essex girl . Particularly during the 1980s, alongside the name Sharon, it was a name considered to be archetypal of the Essex Girl. Its popularity peaked during the 1960s, when Tracey was the sixth most popular female name and the alternate spelling Tracy was the 12th most popular in 1964.