Frances
Frances reached its high-water mark in 1918 at number 8, and has been recorded 600,721 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 318th. About 178,000 Franceses are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 73.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Frances boys named Frances
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 600,721
- Estimated living today
- 178,000
- Median age today
- 73
- Peak year
- 1918
- Best rank
- 8th
- Rank in 2025
- 318th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 595,697 / 5,024
How old the living Franceses are
born that year still alive today
Of the 600,721 babies given the name since 1880, about 178,000 are alive — 30 in every hundred. Roughly 11,000 of them are children and 119,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1952 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Latin
From Old French Franceise, feminine form of Franceis, from Latin Franciscus (“Frankish”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Francess
- Frances McDormand (born 1957)American actress
- Frances Arnold (born 1956)Nobel prize winning US scientist and engineer
- Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924)English-American playwright and author
- Frances Marion (1888–1973)American journalist, author, film director and screenwriter
- Frances Allen (1932–2020)American computer scientist
- Frances Cleveland (1864–1947)First Lady of the United States from 1886 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897
- Frances Burney (1752–1840)English satirical novelist, diarist, playwright
- Frances Conroy (born 1953)American actress
People named Frances with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Frances is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Frances is most concentrated in South Carolina (1.9×), West Virginia (1.7×), Virginia (1.6×), Alabama (1.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1918
The most popular girls’ names the year Frances peaked:
Frances elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Frances | 3,529 | 161st |
| Ireland girls | Frances | 2,509 | 38th |
| New Zealand girls | Frances | 1,212 | 52nd |
| Scotland girls | Frances | 1,065 | 101st |
| Belgium girls | Frances | 337 | 210th |
| France girls | Frances | 140 | 755th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Frances | 44 | 227th |
| Poland girls | Frances | 4 birth registrations | 729th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Frances: rank by region
In 2025, Frances was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Frances | 137 | 41 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Frances appears in the lists for Province of West Flanders (86th), Province of Flemish Brabant (97th), Province of East Flanders (140th) and Province of Antwerp (160th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Frances by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 548th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Frances among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Frances | 15 | 102 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Frances against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.