Frye
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Personal characteristic/status: aus mhd
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fɹaj/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Frye is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 13K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 8.7Kas Fry
- CNChina≈1 in 7.9K
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 Frye 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 451 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈180,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
China, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Personal characteristic/status: aus mhd. vrīman 'freier Mann, nicht leibeigener Bauer'; wohl meist freie Bauern, evtl. auch 'frei von Abgaben'. Bearer count: 1354.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Where in the world(measured from records)
Frye 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 7.9K | — | Frye | 6 |
| US United States | #791 | 38,029as Fry | 1 in 8.7K | 38K | Frye | 451 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 8,244as Frey | 1 in 1K | 8.2K | Frye | 10 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Frye | 6 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈5,000 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 8 | Frye | 90 |
| IE Ireland | #803 | ≈640 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | — | Frye | 5 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Frye | 18 |
| KR South Korea | #373 | ≈310 est. | ≈1 in 165K | — | Frye | 3 |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- William P. Fryeb. 1830USAmerican politician from Maine (1830–1911)
- Dwight Fryeb. 1899USactor (1899-1943)
- Northrop Fryeb. 1912CACanadian literary critic and literary theorist (1912–1991)
- Richard Nelson Fryeb. 1920USAmerican historian (1920–2014)
- Marilyn Fryeb. 1941USfeminist philosopher and professor
- Don Fryeb. 1965USAmerican mixed martial artist
- Mia Fryeb. 1965USactress, singer, professional dancer and dance choreographer
- Soleil Moon Fryeb. 1976USAmerican actress, director, screenwriter (born 1976)
- Channing Fryeb. 1983USAmerican basketball player (born 1983)
- Eric Max Fryeb. 1986USAmerican screenwriter and film director
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 20 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 37K | #937 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 37K | #862 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 36K | #969 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 6 | #89,778 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- 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)
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
- How do you pronounce Frye?
- A machine transcription gives /fɹaj/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Frye mean?
- Recorded meaning: Personal characteristic/status: aus mhd.
- In which country does Frye have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 176 thousand people named Frye in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled frye.
- How common is the name Frye?
- 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 Frye compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Frye is the 373rd most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Frye?
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/fryeThe 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, “Frye” — the 373rd most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.