Aside from the British and perhaps Irish Drakes, another source of Drake surnames exists: the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. These Drakes anglicized such name as De Raet(s), Dratz, and Driggs to Drake during a mass assimilation of the Dutch and the English around the time of the American Revolution. Because both Drake families moved westward and crossed paths, especially in the northern United States, they are easily confused.

And that's before one finds even more imaginative and exotic name-changes!

Evidence of non-English origin can be found in the presence of Dutch, German, Polish, Scandinavian, and especially French (largely Huguenots) surnames in a family tree or residence before 1780 in the Hudson Valley, New York City, or northeastern New Jersey. Persons who can trace Drake ancestors to New England before the American Revolution are probably descended from English Drakes. There were few Dutch, Germans, Poles, or Scandinavians in New England before the American Revolution.

Paul Brower, a great-great grandson of Permelia DRAKE Knauss (1842-1917), who was from the English line, and a descendant of Adam Brouwer (1620-1692), an ancestor of many "Dutch DRAKEs.