Frances is the feminine form of English Francis, a variant of the Latin name [Franciscus] meaning ‘Frenchman’. The Germanic tribe of the Franks settled in the regions now called France, Belgium and the Netherlands in the 3rd and 4th century.
Frances is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.
The name Frances isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Frances ranks 450. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 4 were named Frances. In total, there are currently 533,149 people – children, adults and seniors – named Frances living in the United States, which is approximately 0.16 % of the entire population.
History tends to focus on the most famous and best. But even those who play second fiddle leave their mark: Frances is one of those names without which the orchestra would be incomplete. In fact, Frances has reached the SmartGenius top ranking #8 more than once, although the last time was some while ago, way back in the last century in 1920. But even though the peak of its popularity was many decades ago, the name Frances has been given to newborn girls every year since records began. Frances is of exceptional enduring popularity, conveying the special vibes of the20th century.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Frances was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
The popularity of the name Frances peaked long ago, but the name has nevertheless arrived in the 21st century. In 2022, it ranked #386 in our statistics - perhaps a far cry from when your grandparents or great-grandparents were kids and Frances made it into the top ten more than once, but still: traditional names often prove to be perennial favorites - so, maybe it's only a matter of time before Frances tops out again.
There are only 537 different women’s names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Frances is one of them. However, Frances is not equally widespread in all states, but people in South Carolina seem to particularly fancy this name – the 15,175 women called Frances who live here are 0,689% of all female residents and push their name up to #12, easily placing it in the top 100 most common female names in South Carolina.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter F is quite rare as a first letter for girls' names: only 1.2% of all common girls' names in the US begin with an F. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With seven letters, the name Frances has a typical length for first names in the US. In fact, 26% of all common first names consist of exactly seven letters. 52% of all first names are shorter, while 22% have eight letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that if 1.2% of all girls' names begin with an F, this initial letter is significantly less common than the other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are girls' names with F that are quite popular, the most common at present is Frances.
If your name is Frances and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Frances, you can simply say:
Fox
Rocket
Apple
Nut
Cat
Elephant
Sun
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Frances
Frances
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
F
R
A
N
C
E
S
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
F
R
A
N
C
E
S
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Frances sounds like this:
