Frederick

138,927 people in America carry this name — ranked #406 of 923.

A name of the post-war decades.

Say it FREHD rihk

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

F R EH1 D R IH0 K — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 138,927 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 46.0 about 1 in 2,386 people
  • As a surname 39,331 ranked #863 the other way round

Where Frederick comes from and what it means

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “peace ruler”.

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.

Frederick name popularity by year

263,792 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1952, with 4,997 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s.

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 Frederick

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Frederick Christopher — runs together
  • Frederick Kevin — runs together
  • Frederick 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 and a surname

Frederick is carried in front of the comma and behind it — thousands of Americans have it as a surname too.

Is Frederick used for boys or for girls?

99.9% men
162 women

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

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Same syllables and stress as Frederick

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 — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

The same name elsewhere

  • Rike German
  • Fryc Polish
  • Frek Fris
  • Fred English
  • Wetu Finn
  • Rietu Finn
  • Fritz German
  • Friko Fris
  • Ferry French
  • Prydas Lith
  • Fritze German
  • Fredli Swiss
  • Freddy English
  • Feriga Italian

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 73.0%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 18.0%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 3.6%
  • Two or more races — 2.4%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

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.

Try it Full-Name Estimator

Add a surname and see how many Americans carry the two together.

Open Full-Name Estimator 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