Frank

407,086 people in America carry this name — ranked #115 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Greatest Generation.

Say it FRANGK

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

F R AE1 NG K — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 407,086 2020 Census
  • Rank #115 Common
  • As a surname 63,608 ranked #516 the other way round

What Frank means and where it comes from

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “free”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Frank has been given

917,321 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1918, with 17,089 of them.

80 90 00 10 20s 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Frank

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Frank Christopher — runs together
  • Frank Kevin — runs together
  • Frank Kenneth — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Frank was 1918. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Boys or girls: who is called Frank?

99.8% men
624 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The states where Frank is most common

In New Jersey the name is given 2.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Jersey ×2.3
  • New York ×2.1
  • Connecticut ×1.8
  • Rhode Island ×1.7
  • Pennsylvania ×1.5

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 71.9%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 8.1%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 15.2%
  • Two or more races — 1.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.7%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Names built the same way as Frank

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Spellings of Frank

Frank is how 54% of them spell it — 747,272 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Teutonic origin