Franciscus

given name · Western Frisian · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Franciscus is a given name, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country, where it is the 20th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Western Frisian and Dutch, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from Latin Franciscus 'Frankish, French'.

rarermore common
  • NLNetherlands1 in 103
  • BEBelgium1 in 12K
  • DEGermany1 in 78K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈168K

across 8 countries

Sources
108

11K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 103

Netherlands

Meaning & origin

from Latin Franciscus 'Frankish, French'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Franciscus is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NL Netherlands#20167,8071.9K rec.1 in 103168KFranciscus79
DE Germany1,556425 rec.1Franciscus39
BE Belgium1,289891 rec.2Franciscus47
FR France719407 rec.Franciscus65
AU Australia699751 rec.3Franciscus48
ZA South Africa515565 rec.Franciscus13
ES Spain398213 rec.Franciscus29
US United States2304.9K rec.1 in 1.4M334Franciscus108
GB United Kingdom206240 rec.Franciscus26
SE Sweden1827 rec.1 in 56K1828
AT Austria15521 rec.4Franciscus13
CH Switzerland12123 rec.Franciscus14

Roughly 168K people in Netherlands bear this name (about 1 in 103). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages

  • Western Frisian224K38%
  • Dutch183K31%
  • English171K29%
  • German2.1K1%
  • Indonesian1.4K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Western Frisian224,38838%
Dutch182,69631%
English171,30729%
German2,1011%
Indonesian1,4251%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other recorded senses

Franciscus is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, James, US actor

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In English, element

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In German, Patronymischer Familienname zu Rufname Franz < lat. Franciscus; 615 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

  • In German, patronymische Familiennamen zu Rufname Franciscus (Franz).

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

  • In Latin, zu lat. Franciscus / Rufname Franz; 617 Namensträger

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time

02040602000200520102015202049 · 2015

Show as table
Franciscus in SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023), Sweden, 1999–2020
Yearrecords
199927
200028
200129
200227
200329
200428
200533
200634
200735
200837
200939
201042
201143
201246
201345
201446
201549
201647
201746
201845
201946
202043

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name

1400160018002000Franciscus Gomarus, b. 1563Franciscus Sylvius, b. 1614Jan Frans Vonck, b. 1743Franciscus Cornelis Donders, b. 1818Henk Sneevliet, b. 1883Hans van Mierlo, b. 1931Ruud Lubbers, b. 1939Frans Timmermans, b. 1961Danny Blind, b. 1961Frank de Boer, b. 1970
  • Franciscus Gomarusb. 1563BEDutch theologian (1563-1641)
  • Franciscus Sylviusb. 1614NLDutch physician and chemist of Leyden, Netherlands
  • Jan Frans Vonckb. 1743BEnot in their usual nameFlemish/Belgian lawyer (1743-1792)
  • Franciscus Cornelis Dondersb. 1818NLDutch ophthalmologist (1818-1889)
  • Henk Sneevlietb. 1883NLnot in their usual name20th-century Dutch communist politician (1883–1942)
  • Hans van Mierlob. 1931NLnot in their usual nameDutch politician (1931–2010)
  • Ruud Lubbersb. 1939NLnot in their usual namePrime Minister of the Netherlands from 1982 to 1994
  • Frans Timmermansb. 1961NLnot in their usual nameDutch politician (born 1961)
  • Danny Blindb. 1961NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football manager (born 1961)
  • Frank de Boerb. 1970NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player and manager (born 1970)

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).

Evidence

Attested in 37 sources across 19 countries.

Official registers attesting Franciscus
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)168K#13
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)57K#36
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)2.7K#661
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010334#60,347
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020318#67,004
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000285#65,133
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020230#34,261
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)182#5,590
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)136#4,338
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20)202657#1,083
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)200753#29,719
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)51#3,063

Reference works 4

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name 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 2026-09-12 data build · 80 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Franciscus?
We estimate roughly 168 thousand people bear Franciscus (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
In which country does Franciscus have the most bearers?
We estimate about 168 thousand people bear Franciscus in the Netherlands, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled franciscus.
Where is Franciscus most common?
Franciscus is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 103 people carrying it.
How common is Franciscus compared with other names?
In the Netherlands, Franciscus is the 20th most common given name of 134,847 given names recorded there.
Is Franciscus a male or female name?
Franciscus is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Franciscus mean?
Recorded meaning: from Latin Franciscus 'Frankish, French'
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/franciscus

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Franciscus” — the 20th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Franciscus parses inside a full name →