Related to the Latvian verb krākt (“to roar”). The most likely theory is that the word krāce was influenced by krākt (in, e.g., lengthening the ā), but that it originally was *krace, a form of dialectal kracis (“pole with crossbar (for drying grain)”), from Proto-Indo-European *krek-, *krok- (“to stand out, to stick out, to straighten oneself”), which would originally suggest the specific configuration of rapids in the Daugava river.