François
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Latin Franciscus, from Germanic francus ‘free’; associated with Saint Francis of Assisi
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fʁɑ̃swa/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
François is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country, where it is the 5th most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 477(inferred from the name graph)
- CMCameroon≈1 in 1.1K
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 1.2K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- #762 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 426 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 477 (inferred from the name graph)
≈140,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Francois in FR France, CA Canada, BE Belgium and 2 more.
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)
- LatinFranciscus(measured from records)
- Germanicfrancus(measured from records)
From Latin Franciscus, from Germanic francus ‘free’; associated with Saint Francis of Assisi.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
François 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #5 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 477 | 401K | Francois | 426 |
| ZA South Africa | #697 | ≈48,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Francois | 104 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #299 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | 17 | François | 24 |
| CM Cameroon | #7 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 2 | François | 31 |
| CA Canada | #299 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 1 | Francois | 279 |
| BE Belgium | #35 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 7.4K | Francois | 160 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 7,090 | 1 in 2.4K | 7K | Francois | 76 |
| CH Switzerland | #77 | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | 235 | François | 118 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Assemblee Nationale du Cameroun — sitting-MP roster, 10eme legislature (2020-2025); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
François 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 French, From Latin Franciscus ‘Frenchman’; saints listed with origin tags (d’Assise, de Sales)
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
In French, du latin Franciscus, dérivé de Francus « Franc »
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
In French, Du latin Franciscus, « franc/Franc, homme libre » ; fêté avec saint François d’Assise (4 octobre).
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Du latin Franciscus, « franc, libre »; fête le 4 octobre (saint François d’Assise).
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Origine latine, « Franc ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- François Ib. 1494FRKing of France from 1515 to 1547 (1494-1547)
- François Rabelaisb. 1494FR16th-century French writer and humanist (1494–1553)
- Francis II of Franceb. 1544FRnot in their usual nameKing of France from 1559 to 1560 (1544-1560)
- Francis I, Holy Roman Emperorb. 1708FRnot in their usual nameHoly Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany (1708-1765).
- François Noël Babeufb. 1760FRFrench political agitator and journalist (1760-1797)
- François Duvalierb. 1907HT40th President of the Republic of Haiti (1907-1971)
- Albert Fertb. 1938FRnot in their usual nameFrench physicist, Nobel laureate in physics
- François Bayroub. 1951FRformer Prime Minister of France (2024–2025)
- François Fillonb. 1954FRprime minister of France (2007-2012)
- François Hollandeb. 1954FRPresident of France from 2012 to 2017 (born 1954)
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 48 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 399K | #449 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 7K | #298 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 134 | #4,627 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1948 | 30 | #668 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 17 | #21 |
| CM Cameroon | Assemblee Nationale du Cameroun — sitting-MP roster, 10eme legislature (2020-2025) | 2020 | 2 | #4 |
| FR France | Dictionary of French Prénoms (Benoist, 2009) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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 François mean, and where does it come from?
- From Latin Franciscus, from Germanic francus ‘free’; associated with Saint Francis of Assisi. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- What are other forms of the name François?
- In the etymology graph, Francisco, Francesco and Franck are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is François a male or female name?
- François is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- How do you pronounce François?
- A machine transcription gives /fʁɑ̃swa/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does François have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 142 thousand people named François in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled francois.
- How common is the name François?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 7,090 people named François, about 1 in 2.4 thousand residents.
- How common is François compared with other names?
- In France, François is the 5th most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about François?
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/fran%C3%A7oisThe 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, “François” — the 5th most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.