Oakes is from the Old English āc (oak tree) + -s (plural/possessive). The oak tree in Western culture — the oak is the national tree of the United States (declared 2004 by an act of Congress), England, Germany, France, Estonia, Bulgaria, and seven other nations; sacred to the Druids, who held their ceremonies in oak groves; sacred to the Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter; the longest-living oaks have survived 1,000+ years; the Royal Oak that hid King Charles II from Parliamentary forces after the Battle of Worcester (1651) became one of the most-celebrated trees in English history. Oakes Bowen Mehler — modern American figure. Oakes Field — historic Bahamian site. Tom Oakes — modern actor.
Oakes does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Oakes reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.