Früh
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from früh 'early'; includes compounds for early birth or early rising
/fʁyː/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Früh is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 48K(inferred from the name graph)
- FRFrance≈1 in 287K
- USUnited States1 in 2.2M
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 108 (measured from records)
- 1 in 9.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,700 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Fruh in US United States, FR France, CH Switzerland and 1 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)
from früh 'early'; includes compounds for early birth or early rising
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Früh 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 | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 48K | — | Früh | 70 |
| CH Switzerland | 890 | 1 in 9.4K | 890 | Fruh | 20 |
| FR France | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 287K | 35 | Fruh | 108 |
| US United States | 153 | 1 in 2.2M | 171 | Fruh | 88 |
| AT Austria | ≈69 est. | ≈1 in 128K | — | Früh | 10 |
| FI Finland | ≈18 est. | ≈1 in 308K | — | Fruh | 2 |
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); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Früh 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, early
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, Eigenschaftsname; zu früh 'früh', wohl für einen Frühaufsteher oder etwas zu Frühgeborenen. Bearer count: 55 (Österreich); 468 (Schweiz); 1 (Elsass/Lothringen).
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Persönliches Merkmal: 'früh', Frühauf-Typ; in BW konzentriert.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Übername nach persönlicher Eigenschaft: „früh“; wohl für einen Frühaufsteher/Frühkommer. Belegt mit 1260 Trägern.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
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)
- Johann Jakob Frühb. 1852CHSwiss geographer and geologist (1852-1938)
- Eugen Frühb. 1914CHSwiss painter (1914-1975)
- Kurt Frühb. 1915CHSwiss film director (1915-1979)
- Isidor Frühb. 1922DEGerman politician (1922-2002)
- Hans-Rudolf Frühb. 1936CHSwiss politician
- Giovanni Frühb. 1937CHSwiss actor (1937-2003)
- Eckart Frühb. 1942ATGerman literary historian
- Werner Frühb. 1947DEGerman social scientist and media scholar (1947–2023)
- Katja Frühb. 1953CHSwiss actress and film director
- Mario Frühb. 1962DEGerman publisher (born 1951), until 2017 chief executive officer of the book sales club Büchergilde Gutenberg, Frankfurt, Germany
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 8 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 890 | #1,352 |
Reference works 1
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Früh mean, and where does it come from?
- from früh 'early'; includes compounds for early birth or early rising Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Früh?
- A machine transcription gives /fʁyː/ (IPA) for German.
- In which country does Früh have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.7 thousand people named Früh in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled früh.
- Where is Früh most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Früh is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 9.4 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Früh?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 890 people named Früh in 2024, about 1 in 9.4 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Früh?
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%BChThe 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, “Früh”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.