Franke

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Frankie in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 11 more, Franks in GH Ghana, ES Spain, ZA South Africa and Frank in TH Thailand, LA Laos.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Languages●

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

Other names spelled this way◐

Franke is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Polish surname6.6K records spelled Franke4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Poland, Czechia, United States, Slovakia

  Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

  Also written Fŕańkę

• French surname3.0K records spelled Franke4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, Spain, Netherlands

  Languages: French, Catalan

  Also written Franké, Frankè

52 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Franke is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In German, Franconian (person from the German region of Franconia (Franken), northern Bavaria)

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In German, Toponymischer Familienname aus dem Stammesnamen Franke bzw. der nach den Franken benannten Landschaft; 22.755 Bearer. < SiedlungsN X / < ON X nicht gesondert angegeben.

  as a name·Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

• In Russian, "Western European."

  as a word·A Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)

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●

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 15 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●

• Otto Frankeb. 1863DEGerman sinologist (1863–1946)
• Victor Frankeb. 1865DEmilitary officer from Germany (1865–1936)
• Egon Frankeb. 1913DEGerman politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (1913-1995)
• Herbert Frankeb. 1914DEGerman historian (1914-2011)
• Herbert W. Frankeb. 1927ATAustrian scientist and writer (1927–2022)
• Egon Frankeb. 1935PLPolish fencer (1935–2022)
• Bernd Frankeb. 1948DEGerman footballer
• Christopher Frankeb. 1953DEGerman musician and composer
• Stéphane Frankeb. 1964FRathletics competitor (1964–2011)
• Anja Frankeb. 1964DEGerman actress

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 129 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Franke?

We estimate roughly 644 thousand people bear Franke (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.

In which country does Franke have the most bearers?

We estimate about 406 thousand people bear Franke in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled frankie.

Where is Franke most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Franke is densest in France — about 1 in 382 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.

How common is Franke compared with other names?

In the United States, Franke is the 783rd most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.

What does the name Franke mean?

Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname from a place name/region/dwelling name ‘Frank’; bearer count 22,755.