Frederick
Feminine · “Peaceful ruler”
Frederick is given to boys far more often — 266,060 boys against 1,105 girls since 1880. See Frederick as a boy name
Frederick the Great put guards on a potato field to make people want to steal the crop. Prussian peasants would not eat the things; the king planted a royal field, posted soldiers around it with instructions to be visibly slack, and the potatoes disappeared into gardens across the country.
How old is the name Frederick?
Frederick first appears in US birth records in 1908 — 117 years ago. The typical Frederick alive today was born around 1957, making them about 68 years old. About 700 people named Frederick are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Frederick most popular?
Frederick peaked in 1929, reaching #1825 nationally. See the whole 1929 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Fridurih to Frederick
The story of Frederick
The name means peace and the kings who carried it spent their reigns at war. The Prussian line took it four times, fought Austria for a province and kept it, fought most of Europe at once and survived, and built a state whose defining institution was its army; the great one of them wrote a treatise against political cynicism as a young man and then conducted a reign that reads as an argument against it. There are still potatoes left on his grave by visitors, which is a gentler memorial than the record supports. The story about the guarded field is told everywhere in Germany and the documentary evidence for it is thin.
Meaning
Peaceful ruler
Two Germanic elements: one about peace, one about rule or power. The compound is transparent in German, where both halves are still recognizable words, and completely opaque in English, which borrowed the whole thing and none of the parts.
How the name formed
- Fridurih
- Friedrich
- Frederick
Related forms: Friedrich · Frederic · Federico
Pronouncing Frederick
FRED-rik
Two or three syllables depending on how carefully the middle one is said; most English speakers give it two. German gives all three and pronounces the ch as a rasp.
Nicknames for Frederick
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1908
- Most girls named
- 197228 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1825reached in 1929
- Change vs 1991
- 0.0%5 in 1993, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Frederick in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Friedrich in German — same name
- Frederic in French — same name
- Federico in Italian — same name
Fredericks among us
people named Frederick are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Frederick sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Three short forms in three quite different registers.
- The meaning is concrete and can be given to a child in two words.
- It has been in continuous English use for a thousand years.
- The record carries it for girls in small numbers, so it is not quite an absolute signal.
- Frederic and Fredrick are both current and spelling it out is a permanent job.
- It is a long formal name and other people will shorten it immediately.
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What they receive
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Frederick
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Fredericks are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Frederick are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Frederick in 2025?
- Frederick is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Frederick with classmates?
- Frederick will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More F names
The most-given names starting with F, all years combined.
Frances#318 · Florence#391 · Faith#254 · Felicia#5554 · Fannie#3342 · Faye#514 · Flora#607 · Freda#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Frederick? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Frederick and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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