Frater
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from OFr fraitur ‘one in charge of the refectory of a monastery’; first attested Richard del Fraytour 1301 SRY
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fɹatə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Frater is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 80K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 88K
- USUnited States1 in 518K
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.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 230 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 31K (inferred from the name graph)
≈740 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Jamaica, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from OFr fraitur ‘one in charge of the refectory of a monastery’; first attested Richard del Fraytour 1301 SRY
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Frater 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈740 est. | ≈1 in 88K | — | Frater | 130 |
| US United States | — | 642 | 1 in 518K | 824 | Frater | 230 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 80K | — | Frater | 78 |
| FR France | — | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 433K | 12 | — | 3 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 311K | — | Frater | 53 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Frater | 55 |
| JM Jamaica | — | ≈91 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | Frater | 9 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 1 | 1 in 54K | 1 | — | 2 |
| AI Anguilla | #709 | — | — | — | Frater | 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)
Frater 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, A monk.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Dutch, a twite (Linaria flavirostris, syn. Carduelis flavirostris)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, brother (monk who is not a priest)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Indonesian, a candidate for priesthood
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, brother
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)
- Gáspár Körmendib. 1500HUnot in their usual nameHungarian poet
- George Fraterb. 1876GBScottish rugby league footballer
- Jim Fraterb. 1887NLDutch painter (1887-1969)
- Alexander Fraterb. 1937VUBritish journalist and travel writer (1937–2020)
- Anne Fraterb. 1967GBBritish writer
- Michael Fraterb. 1982JMJamaican sprint athlete
- Richard Fraterb. 1984NZNew Zealand artist (born 1984)
- Janet FraterNZNew Zealander who received MNZM for services as a General Practitioner in June 2021
- Marion FraterNZNew Zealand jurist
- Paul FraterUSresearcher
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 21 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 824 | #30,365 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 642 | #35,096 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 616 | #34,711 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 20 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 20 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 20 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 14 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 13 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 13 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 12 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 12 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 12 | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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)
- 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
- What does the name Frater mean, and where does it come from?
- from OFr fraitur ‘one in charge of the refectory of a monastery’; first attested Richard del Fraytour 1301 SRY Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Frater?
- A machine transcription gives /fɹatə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Frater have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 744 people named Frater in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled frater.
- How common is the name Frater?
- In the United States, the national register counted 642 people named Frater in 2010, about 1 in 518 thousand residents.
- How common is Frater compared with other names?
- In Anguilla, Frater is the 709th most common surname of 7,424 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Frater?
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/fraterThe 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, “Frater” — the 709th most common surname in Anguilla. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.