Freda
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Short form of various names such as dElfreda and ) Winifred, also occasionally of Frederica
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈfɹɛd/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Freda is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GHGhana≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7.7K
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 10K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 379 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈180,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Short form of various names such as dElfreda and ) Winifred, also occasionally of Frederica. Pet form: Freddie.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Freda 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 | — | ≈180,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.8K | — | Freda | 20 |
| US United States | — | 15,119 | 1 in 22K | 15K | Freda | 379 |
| GB United Kingdom | #664 | ≈8,600 est. | ≈1 in 7.7K | 4 | Freda | 168 |
| GH Ghana | #148 | ≈7,400 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Freda | 60 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Freda | 45 |
| HK Hong Kong | #941 | ≈870 est. | ≈1 in 8.3K | — | Freda | 21 |
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). 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)
Freda 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 female given name from the Germanic languages.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, forma feminina de Fredo
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In German, ) Frede: weibl. Vom., Kurzform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
English: short form of various names such as ELFREDA and WINIFRED , also, occasionally, of FREDERICA . The name is sometimes spelled Frieda, under the influence of German FRIEDE . Pet form: Freddie .
as a word
In Swedish, protect, save (used in some contexts only)
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)
- Freda du Faurb. 1882AUAustralian mountaineer (1882–1935)
- Joséphine Bakerb. 1906USnot in their usual nameAmerican-born French dancer, singer and actress (1906–1975)
- Freda Jacksonb. 1907GBactress (1907–1990)
- Freda Bedib. 1911GBBritish Buddhist nun (1911-1977)
- Freda Jamesb. 1911GBEnglish tennis player (1911–1988)
- Freda Brownb. 1919AUAustralian political activist
- Freda Meissner-Blaub. 1927ATAustrian politician and environmental activist (1927–2015)
- Freda Dowieb. 1928GBBritish screen actress (1928–2019)
- Freda Payneb. 1942USAmerican singer and actress (born 1942)
- Freda Foh Shenb. 1948USAmerican actress
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 69 sources across 36 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 15K | #1,894 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 29 | #1,894 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 17 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1942 | 6 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 1981 | 4 | #472 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Hanks & Hodges, 2001) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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 Freda come from?
- Short form of various names such as dElfreda and ) Winifred, also occasionally of Frederica. Pet form: Freddie. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Freda a male or female name?
- Freda is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Freda mean?
- Recorded meaning: Short form of various names such as dElfreda and ) Winifred, also occasionally of Frederica.
- What are other forms of the name Freda?
- In the etymology graph, Winnie, Frederica and Gwenfrewi are forms of the same name in other languages; Freddie is a recorded short or pet form; it is recorded as a short form of Winifred and Alfreda.
- In which country does Freda have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 179 thousand people named Freda in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled freda.
- How do you pronounce Freda?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈfɹɛd/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Freda?
- In the United States, the national register counted 15,119 people named Freda in 2020, about 1 in 22 thousand residents.
- How common is Freda compared with other names?
- In Ghana, Freda is the 148th most common given name of 14,081 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Freda?
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/fredaThe 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, “Freda” — the 148th most common given name in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.