Fois
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Italian: a surname from Sardinian
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/foiz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Fois is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Italy than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 117K(inferred from the name graph)
- ITItaly≈1 in 13K
- BEBelgium1 in 163K
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.
- Italy (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 149 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 13K (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,700 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Italy, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
time (an instance or repetition of something happening)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Fois is read(measured from records)
Fois is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Italian31%
a surname from Sardinian
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French30%
time (an instance or repetition of something happening)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish14%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Fois in Spanish.
- English12%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Fois in English.
- Portuguese5.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Fois in Portuguese.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Fois 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IT Italy | ≈4,700 est. | ≈1 in 13K | listed | Fois | 31 |
| FR France | ≈580 est. | ≈1 in 117K | 104 | Fois | 149 |
| BR Brazil | 188 | 1 in 1.1M | 188 | — | — |
| US United States | ≈96 est. | ≈1 in 3.5M | listed | Fois | 22 |
| AR Argentina | 94 | 1 in 484K | 94 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | 72 | 1 in 163K | 72 | Fois | 12 |
| CH Switzerland | 27 | 1 in 311K | 27 | — | 1 |
| UY Uruguay | 18 | 1 in 188K | 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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); the xinhua-italian-manual register; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Fois 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 Occitan, Foix (the capital city of Ariège department, France; capital city)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Scottish Gaelic, rest, relaxation, repose, leisure
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, vocative/genitive singular of fos
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In bar, if, in case, in the event that
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)
- Domenico Foisb. 1780ITItalian jurist, politician and lawyer
- Giovanni Melis Foisb. 1916ITItalian Catholic bishop (1916-2009)
- Sergio Foisb. 1931ITItalian jurist (1931-2009)
- Andrew Foisb. 1958USAmerican lawyer
- Marcello Foisb. 1960ITItalian writer, dramaturge and screenwriter
- Marina Foïsb. 1970FRFrench actress (born 1970)
- Valentino Foisb. 1973ITItalian bicycle racer (1973–2008)
- Giulia Foïsb. 1978FRFrench journalist, author and radio host
- Riccardo Foisb. 1987ITItalian basketball player and coach (born 1987)
- Marisa FoisITItalian historian
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 23 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 188 | #38,644 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 104 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 103 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 94 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 94 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 83 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 77 | — |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 72 | #20,070 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 41 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 36 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 34 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 27 | #29,501 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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
- Where does the name Fois come from?
- time (an instance or repetition of something happening) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Fois?
- In the etymology graph, Vez is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Fois?
- A machine transcription gives /foiz/ (IPA) for Italian.
- What does the name Fois mean?
- In Italian, a surname from Sardinian
- In which country does Fois have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.7 thousand people named Fois in Italy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fois.
- How common is the name Fois?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 188 people named Fois, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.
What do you want to know about Fois?
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/foisThe 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, “Fois”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.