English (Devon): nickname from Middle English sprag ‘brisk, energetic’, a variant of Sprake with voicing of the -k-, which survives in the 19th-century dialect word spragg ‘lively, ingenious’. It was occasionally used in the 12th century as personal name, recorded as Spreg'c. 1177–86.

History: William Sprague came from England to Salem, MA, in 1628 with his brothers Ralph and Richard. He was one of the founders of Charlestown, MA, and later of Hingham, MA. His descendants include Peleg Sprague, a jurist and MA legislator, who was born in 1793 in Duxbury, MA; William Sprague a textile manufacturer born in 1773 in Cranston, RI; and Yale College educator Homer Baxter Sprague, who was born in 1829 in South Sutton, MA, and whose legacy lives on in Yale's Sprague concert hall.