Fry
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Either from a nickname for a small person, or in feudal use ‘free man’ (not a serf)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/fɹaɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Fry is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Switzerland it is the 17th most common surname.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 5.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 8.7K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 604as Frei
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Fry itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 472 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.2K (inferred from the name graph)
38,029 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hungary, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled פריד in IL Israel, HU Hungary, RO Romania, Frei in CH Switzerland, DE Germany and Fries in SE Sweden.
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)
Either from a nickname for a small person, or in feudal use ‘free man’ (not a serf).
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Fry 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #588 | 38,029 | 1 in 8.7K | 38K | Fry | 472 |
| CH Switzerland | #17 | 13,925as Frei | 1 in 604 | 14K | Frei | 121 |
| GB United Kingdom | #429 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.6K | listed | Fry | 246 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | listed | Frei | 142 |
| BR Brazil | — | 6,492as Frade | 1 in 33K | 6.5K | — | 2 |
| RO Romania | #492 | ≈4,600 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | — | פריד | 7 |
| IL Israel | #261 | 3,886as פריד | 1 in 2.2K | 3.9K | פריד | 52 |
| HU Hungary | #758 | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 4.2K | — | פריד | 35 |
| SE Sweden | — | 2,234as Frid | 1 in 4.6K | 2.2K | Fries | 26 |
38,029 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Fry 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, from Old English frīg ‘free’; first attested William Frie 1195 P (Sx)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Transferred use of the surname, in origin denoting either a free person rather than a serf (from Old English frig ‘free’, a byform of fréo) or else a small person (from Old Norse frié ‘seed’). Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) was acelebrated Quaker prison reformer, noted for her compassion.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, from the OE byform frig. z. nickname for a small person, from ME fry small person, child, offspring (ON frio seed). Fulcoii see Foulkes
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, from the OE byform frig. 2. nickname for a small person, from ME fry small per¬ son, child, offspring (ONfrio seed). Var.: Frye.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, A method of cooking food.
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)
- Elizabeth Fryb. 1780GBsocial reformer from England (1780-1845)
- Roger Fryb. 1866GBEnglish artist and art critic (1866-1934)
- Christopher Fryb. 1907GBEnglish poet and playwright (1907–2005)
- Varian Fryb. 1907USAmerican journalist (1907-1967)
- Shirley Fryb. 1927USAmerican tennis and badminton player (1927–2021)
- Stephen Fryb. 1957GBBritish comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist
- Hannah Fryb. 1984GBBritish mathematician and TV presenter (1984-)
- Joel Fryb. 1985GBEnglish actor and musician
- Lucy Fryb. 1992AUAustralian actress
- Jordan Fryb. 1993USAmerican actor
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 33 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 38K | #909 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 38K | #838 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 37K | #931 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 204 | #6,166 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 42 | #118,404 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 29 | #19,457 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
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 Fry mean, and where does it come from?
- Either from a nickname for a small person, or in feudal use ‘free man’ (not a serf). Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Fry?
- A machine transcription gives /fɹaɪ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Fry have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 38 thousand people named Fry, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fry.
- How common is the name Fry?
- In the United States, the national register counted 38,029 people named Fry in 2010, about 1 in 8.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Fry compared with other names?
- In the United States, Fry is the 588th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Fry?
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/fryThe 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, “Fry” — the 588th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.