Fröhlich
surname · Latin script
Meaning: trait surname: cheerful/joyful; bearer count not printed on this line
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈfʁøːlɪç/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Fröhlich is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In Bermuda it is the 24th most common surname.
- DEGermany≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- ATAustria≈1 in 7K
- USUnited States1 in 74Kas Froehlich
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Fröhlich itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 298 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈20,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Froehlich in US United States, BM Bermuda.
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)
trait surname: cheerful/joyful; bearer count not printed on this line
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Fröhlich 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #144 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Fröhlich | 132 |
| US United States | — | 4,504as Froehlich | 1 in 74K | 4.5K | Froehlich | 298 |
| BR Brazil | — | 2,183 | 1 in 97K | 2.2K | — | 4 |
| CH Switzerland | #789 | 1,312 | 1 in 6.4K | 1.3K | Fröhlich | 34 |
| AT Austria | #218 | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 7K | — | Fröhlich | 50 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 367 | 1 in 29K | 367 | Fröhlich | 21 |
| BM Bermuda | #24 | ≈5 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Froehlich | 1 |
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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017. 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)
Fröhlich 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 German, Adjective-based surname; single type on this plate, suffix -lich.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
In German, cheerful
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, merry; cheerful; either as a character trait or fleetingly
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Übername zu mhd. frö(e)lich ‘fröhlich, heiter’; zeigt Laut-/Schreibvarianten und Kürzungen des Suffixes -lich. Bearer counts: 1452; 15.–19. Jh. vielfach belegt.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
In German, zu mhd. vrœlich, mnd. vrolik 'froh, fröhlich, heiter, ausgelassen'; Übername mit -lich-Suffix. 12467 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
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)
- Alfred Fröhlichb. 1871ATAustrian pharmacologist (1871–1953)
- Gustav Fröhlichb. 1902DEGerman actor and film director (1902-1987)
- Herbert Fröhlichb. 1905DEBritish physicist (1905–1991)
- Albrecht Fröhlichb. 1916GBBritish mathematician (1916-2001)
- Peter Gayb. 1923USnot in their usual nameGerman-American historian and author (1923–2015)
- Pea Fröhlichb. 1943DEGerman psychologist and screenwriter
- Jürg Fröhlichb. 1946CHSwiss mathematician, theoretical physicist, and university teacher (born 1946)
- Alexandra Fröhlichb. 1960DEGerman novelist
- Katrin Fröhlichb. 1968DEGerman actress and voice actress
- Arild Fröhlichb. 1972NONorwegian film director
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 18 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 1.3K | #831 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 367 | #4,380 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 367 | #3,783 |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Fröhlich mean, and where does it come from?
- trait surname: cheerful/joyful; bearer count not printed on this line Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- How do you pronounce Fröhlich?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈfʁøːlɪç/ (IPA) for German.
- In which country does Fröhlich have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 20 thousand people named Fröhlich in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fröhlich.
- How common is the name Fröhlich?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 2,183 people named Fröhlich, about 1 in 97 thousand residents.
- How common is Fröhlich compared with other names?
- In Germany, Fröhlich is the 144th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Fröhlich?
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/fr%C3%B6hlichThe 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, “Fröhlich” — the 144th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.