Frances

What Frances means

Meaning not yet sourced. Wiktionary has no word-by-word meaning for Frances yet, and we don’t write our own.

Editor’s note Up from #513 in 2015 to #318 in 2025 in the US Worked out from the official US and England & Wales counts, not a meaning.

How popular is Frances?

US: Rising: up from #513 in 2015. England & Wales: Rising: up from #461 in 2015.

Biggest US share so far: 1918, when 16,132 girls got the name (#8 that year). First in the US records in 1880.

How common

• About 1 in 1,674 baby girls in the US in 2025
• About 1 in 2,261 baby girls in England and Wales in 2025
• About 1 in 5,964 baby girls in Scotland in 2025

“1 in N” divides by all listed births for that sex. The US list leaves out names given to fewer than 5 babies, and the UK lists leave out names given to 2 or fewer, so the real figure is a little rarer than shown.

Where in the US

Most popular in VT (5.13 per 1,000 girls), DC (4.95 per 1,000 girls), ME (3.53 per 1,000 girls) in 2025.

SSA state data, 2025. Share of all listed girls born in each state.

US vs UK

Frances is #318 in the US and #379 in England & Wales (2025).

Same sex as this page (girls). SSA (US), ONS (England and Wales), NRS (Scotland).

Boy or girl?

In 2025, 99.4% of US babies named Frances were girls.

Counts below the publishing threshold (US 5, UK 3) are not included.

How to say it

IPA from Wiktionary.

Other spellings parents chose in 2025

• Francis122 US · 13 E&W

Names that sound the same and differ by a letter or two, with baby counts for the same sex. US and E&W counts.

Nicknames

• Fannie
• Fanny
• Fran
• Francie
• Frannie
• Franny

Listed on Wiktionary under “pet forms”.

If you like Frances

Girls

• Octavia#308“the eighth”^*
• Regina#395“queen”^*
• Loretta#606Diminutive of Laura, meaning “laurel tree”^*
• Maxine#496Editor’s note Climbing fast in the US: #1,106 in 2015, #496 in 2025
• Florence#391“flowering, flourishing”^*
• Sylvia#300“forest”^*

For a brother

• Theodore#4Editor’s note Climbing fast in the US: #99 in 2015, #4 in 2025
• Leon#138“lion”^*
• Lionel#659“lion”^*
• Felix#175“happy, lucky”^*
• Augustine#545Same root as Austin, meaning “majestic”^*
• August#81“month of August”^*

Picked from the US top 1,000 in 2025: names Wiktionary also files under Latin, whose US popularity since 1990 rose and fell most like Frances’s. Rank is US 2025.