Fox
surname · Latin script
Meaning: From a medieval nickname for someone thought to resemble a fox, especially in cunning or red hair; also a translation of Gaelic Mac an tSionnaigh and a euphemistic translation of Fuchs
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/fɑks/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Fox is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Ireland it is the 81st most common surname.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.4K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.8K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #553 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 564 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈410,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From a medieval nickname for someone thought to resemble a fox, especially in cunning or red hair; also a translation of Gaelic Mac an tSionnaigh and a euphemistic translation of Fuchs.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Fox counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈410,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Fox | 21 |
| US United States | #151 | 152,334 | 1 in 2.2K | 152K | Fox | 564 |
| GB United Kingdom | #105 | ≈46,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 4 | Fox | 323 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.2K | — | Fox | 50 |
| CA Canada | #144 | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 1 | Fox | 254 |
| AU Australia | #146 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | 3 | Fox | 224 |
| IE Ireland | #81 | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Fox | 142 |
| NZ New Zealand | #152 | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | 12 | Fox | 121 |
| IS Iceland | #260 | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | listed | Fox | 18 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Fox is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, nickname; first attested Toue fox Hy 2 DC (Lancashire)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, A small-to-medium-sized canine mammal with a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail, of the following groups:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, N. American people; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, Von ahd./mhd. fochs/fox ‘Fuchs’; belegt als gutturale Frikativ-Variante mit x-Schreibung. Bearer count: 1337.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Nebenkarte zu Fox/Focks/Fochs; im nd. Raum meist Teilverhochdeutschung von Voß, im hd. Raum Variante zu Fuchs mit o statt u; teils auch engl. Fremdname. 1613 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Gardner Foxb. 1911USAmerican comics writer and novelist (1911–1986)
- Edward Foxb. 1937GBEnglish actor (born 1937)
- Vicente Foxb. 1942MX62th President of Mexico
- Michael J. Foxb. 1961CACanadian-American actor, comedian, author, film producer, and activist
- Vivica A. Foxb. 1964USAmerican actress
- Matthew Foxb. 1966USAmerican actor (born 1966)
- Emilia Foxb. 1974GBBritish actress and presenter (born 1974)
- Laurence Foxb. 1978GBBritish actor
- Megan Foxb. 1986USAmerican actress and model (born 1986)
- Spencer Foxb. 1993USAmerican musician, singer and actor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 72 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 152K | #180 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 150K | #180 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 147K | #167 |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Fox mean, and where does it come from?
- From a medieval nickname for someone thought to resemble a fox, especially in cunning or red hair; also a translation of Gaelic Mac an tSionnaigh and a euphemistic translation of Fuchs. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Fox?
- In the etymology graph, Fuchs is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Fox?
- In the United States, the national register counted 152,334 people named Fox in 2010, about 1 in 2.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Fox compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Fox is the 81st most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
- In which country does Fox have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 411 thousand people named Fox in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fox.
- How do you pronounce Fox?
- A machine transcription gives /fɑks/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Fox?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/foxThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Fox” — the 81st most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.