Frans
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Frans är ett helgonnamn, ursprungligen en tysk smekform till latinets Franciscus, som från början är ett binamn ’fransosen, franken’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/frɑns/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Frans is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the Netherlands it is the 44th most common given name.
- SESweden1 in 840(measured from records)
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 1.2K
- NLNetherlands1 in 1.4M
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 Frans 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #376 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 556 (measured from records)
- 1 in 840 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,600,000 named Frances, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Frances in US United States, GB United Kingdom, NZ New Zealand and 3 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)
Frans är ett helgonnamn, ursprungligen en tysk smekform till latinets Franciscus, som från början är ett binamn ’fransosen, franken’. En känd namnbärare var den tjeckisk-österrikiske författaren Franz Kafka (1883–1924). Frans har blivit ett populärt namn det senaste decenniet i Sverige. I både den rikssvenska och finlandssvenska almanackan 4 oktober, den helige Franciskus’ minnesdag.
Sources 1
- Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Frans 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 | — | ≈1,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 886 | — | Frances | 56 |
| US United States | #164 | 201,693as Frances | 1 in 1.6K | 200K | Frances | 556 |
| GB United Kingdom | #149 | ≈77,000 est. | ≈1 in 850 | 5 | Frances | 286 |
| ZA South Africa | #131 | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Frans | 83 |
| EG Egypt | #828 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Frances | 25 |
| SE Sweden | #739 | 12,150 | 1 in 840 | 12K | Frans | 68 |
| IE Ireland | #105 | ≈7,000 est. | ≈1 in 739 | — | Frances | 111 |
| NZ New Zealand | #111 | ≈6,400 est. | ≈1 in 765 | 17 | Frances | 133 |
| NL Netherlands | #44 | 12 | 1 in 1.4M | 14K | Frans | 161 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); 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)
Frans is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, männl. Vom., niederländische Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Afrikaans, French (of, from, or pertaining to France, the French people or the French language)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Haitian Creole, France (a country located primarily in Western Europe)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Polish, francium (chemical element, Fr, atomic number 87)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Frans Florisb. 1519BEFlemish painter (1519–1570)
- Frans Snydersb. 1579BEFlemish painter (1579–1657)
- Frans II Franckenb. 1581BEFlemish painter (1581–1642)
- Frans Halsb. 1591NLDutch painter (1580–1666)
- Frans Postb. 1612NLpainter from the Northern Netherlands (1612–1680)
- Frans van Mieris the Elderb. 1635NLDutch painter (1635–1681)
- Frans Eemil Sillanpääb. 1888FIFinnish writer (1888–1964)
- Reima Pietiläb. 1923FInot in their usual nameFinnish architect (1923–1993)
- Frans Brüggenb. 1934NLDutch conductor, recorder player and baroque flautist (1934–2014)
- Frans de Waalb. 1948NLDutch primatologist and ethologist (1948–2024)
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 65 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 14K | #277 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 12K | #341 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 3.9K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 647 | #16,819 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 18 | #16,819 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2018 | 6 | — |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 6 | #38,231 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name 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
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
- In which country does Frans have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.6 million people named Frances in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Frans most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Frans is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 840 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- What does the name Frans mean?
- Recorded meaning: Frans är ett helgonnamn, ursprungligen en tysk smekform till latinets Franciscus, som från början är ett binamn ’fransosen, franken’.
- How common is the name Frans?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 12,150 people named Frans, about 1 in 840 residents.
- How common is Frans compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Frans is the 44th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Frans?
- A machine transcription gives /frɑns/ (IPA) for Dutch.
- Is Frans a male or female name?
- Frans 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.
- What are other forms of the name Frans?
- In the etymology graph, Francisco, Frank and Francesco are forms of the same name in other languages.
What do you want to know about Frans?
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/fransThe 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, “Frans” — the 44th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.