Fredric
Masculine · “peaceful ruler”
Fredric trims two letters from Frederick and loses nothing, because neither the e nor the k does any work. The name underneath is one of the great Germanic compounds — peace and power joined together — and it belonged to emperors, kings and a Prussia's worth of Fredericks. This spelling peaked in America in 1943.
How old is the name Fredric?
Fredric first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Fredric alive today was born around 1947, making them about 78 years old. About 4,500 people named Fredric are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Fredric most popular?
Fredric peaked in 1943, reaching #421 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 5,440 places below that high. See the whole 1943 chart.
Where it comes from
From frid ric to Fredric
The story of Fredric
Friedrich was among the most important names in German dynastic history: Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, and the Prussian kings culminating in Frederick the Great. It entered England properly with the Hanoverian succession in 1714 and was well established by the nineteenth century. American use was strengthened by German migration, which was the largest single source of nineteenth-century immigration to the United States. The trimmed Fredric spelling is a twentieth-century American simplification; the actor Fredric March, who won two Academy Awards in the 1930s and was one of the most visible film stars of the period, used it and is the likeliest reason for its 1943 peak.
Meaning
peaceful ruler
Germanic frid, 'peace, protection', and ric, 'ruler, power'. The compound is transparent and the derivation is settled. As with all Germanic dithematic names it was assembled from a family's stock of elements rather than composed as a sentence, so 'peaceful ruler' describes the parts accurately without implying that anyone meant it as a description. The same ric is the second half of Roderick, Erich and Ulrich.
How the name formed
- frid ric
- Friedrich
- Frederick
- Fredric
Related forms: Friedrich · Frederick · Frederic · Federico · Fredrik
Pronouncing Fredric
FRED-rik
Two syllables in this spelling, stress on the first — which is how most Americans say Frederick anyway, since the middle vowel of the longer spelling is routinely dropped. The trimmed spelling simply writes what the mouth already does.
Nicknames for Fredric
High
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 1947223 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #421reached in 1943
- Change vs 2022
- 0.0%15 in 2025, from 15
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.
Fredric in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Friedrich in German — related form
- Frederick in English — spelling variant
- Frederic in French — related form
- Federico in Italian — related form
- Fredrik in Swedish — related form
Fredrics among us
people named Fredric are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Fredric
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Fredric
- #5861
- Fredric on the 2025 chart
- #802
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Fredric went to 15 boys in 2025, but Fredrick and Fredrik are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 126, which makes it the 802nd most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,059 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 13,556 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 113,872 for Fredric itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Emmitt test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Fredric's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Emmitt climbed just as high around 1905, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Emmitt's path sketches the road Fredric is walking now.
Fredric sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Fredric beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Fredric in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Fred, Freddie, Fritz and Rick give it four short forms across three traditions.
- The meaning is settled and expressible in two words.
- The spelling matches the way the name is actually pronounced.
- Frederick is far the more common spelling and hers will be written that way.
- The trimmed spelling reads as an error to people who know the longer one.
- Its American curve is mid-century, which places a bearer's generation.
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Fredric
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Fredrics are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,500 people named Fredric are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Fredric?
- Fredric is one of 3 recorded spellings. Fredrick is the more common one — 94 births in 2025 against 15 for Fredric.
- How popular is the name Fredric in 2025?
- Fredric ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Fredric?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Fredric — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Fredric with classmates?
- Fredric will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Fredric
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Fredric? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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