Fodor

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Hungarian: frill, ruffle (clothing)

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈfoʊdɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Fodor is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Hungary than in any other country, where it is the 29th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • HUHungary≈1 in 1.4K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 158K
  • RORomania≈1 in 4K

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.

Hungary (inferred from the name graph)

≈6,800 people, est.

Sources
158 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)

Hungary, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

frill, ruffle (clothing)

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

How Fodor is read(measured from records)

Fodor is one spelling over 2 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.

  • English48%

    Eugene, travel author

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    A derivative of ...; first attested Roger le Fodere 1327 SRSf; Walter Fodere, Fodier 1327, 1332 SRSx

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • Hungarian23%

    frill, ruffle (clothing)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Fodor 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.

Where Fodor is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
HU Hungary#29≈6,800 est.≈1 in 1.4K22KFodor158
RO Romania#408≈5,300 est.≈1 in 4K—Fodor50
US United States—2,1121 in 158K2.1KFodor145
SA Saudi Arabia—≈1,300 est.≈1 in 27K—Fodor3
IT Italy—≈630 est.≈1 in 99KlistedFodor15
RS Serbia—≈460 est.≈1 in 15K—Fodor24
HR Croatia—2111 in 20K211——

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: Nyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); the xinhua-italian-manual register. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Fodor is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Födor, Foedor

  • Romanian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Romania, United States, Italy, United Kingdom

    Also written Fódór

  • Croatian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, Serbia, United States, Romania

    Languages: Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian

    Also written Фодор

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Canada

    Also written Födor

  • Slovak surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Slovakia, Czechia, United States, Romania

    Languages: Slovak, Czech

    Also written Fódor, Födor

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Födor

  • Ukrainian surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, United States

    Languages: Ukrainian, Russian

    Also written Фодор, Födor

37 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Fodor is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • De pelo rizado

    as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado

  • In Russian, var of Feodor.

    as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)

  • In ang, fodder

    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)

175018001850190019502000Josephine Fodor, b. 1789Nandor Fodor, b. 1895Ladislas Fodor, b. 1898Eugene Fodor, b. 1905Gábor Béla Fodor, b. 1915Jerry Fodor, b. 1935Eugene Fodor, b. 1950Gábor Fodor, b. 1962Rajmund Fodor, b. 1976Zoltán Fodor, b. 1985

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)

FormalDear Fodor,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 32 sources across 20 countries.

Official registers attesting Fodor
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201123K#30
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201223K#30
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201323K#30
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201423K#30
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201523K#31
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201623K#31
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201723K#31
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201822K#31
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)201922K#31
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)202022K#30
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)202122K#30
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)202222K#30

Reference works 5

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 Fodor mean, and where does it come from?
frill, ruffle (clothing) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Fodor?
A machine transcription gives /ˈfoʊdɝ/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Fodor have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 6.8 thousand people named Fodor in Hungary, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fodor.
How common is the name Fodor?
In the United States, the national register counted 2,112 people named Fodor in 2010, about 1 in 158 thousand residents.
How common is Fodor compared with other names?
In Hungary, Fodor is the 29th most common surname of 88,284 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Fodor?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/fodor

The 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, “Fodor” — the 29th most common surname in Hungary. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Fodor parses inside a full name →