Friedrich

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Boy · Old High German

Friedrich

Say it: FREE-drikh

Try it with your surname

Meaning

From Germanic frid 'peace' and ric 'ruler, powerful'.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

Peaceful

An imperial and Prussian royal name that stayed among the most common German boys' names until the 20th century.

Its wave through time

Rare in the records

In the United States

05101518801900192019401960198020002020Peak 2019per million babies of that sex
  • 533 babies given this name since 1914
  • At its height in 2019, about 1 in 68,700 boys
  • 15 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
  2. The Renaissance1400 to 1600
  3. The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
  4. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
  5. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

GermanAustrianSwiss

The family of the name

EnglishFrederick
FrenchFrédéric
ItalianFederico
SpanishFederico
DutchFrederik
SwedishFredrik
DanishFrederik
PolishFryderyk

Famous bearers

  • Frederick I Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor
  • Frederick the Great, king of Prussia
  • Friedrich Schiller, poet

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Royal and noble genealogies
  • Parish baptism registers
  • National birth statistics of European countries source
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.