Fraser
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Fraser is a surname, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom. In Guyana it is the 9th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Welsh, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Scottish surname of uncertain origin and meaning.
- GYGuyana1 in 241◐
- NZNew Zealand1 in 1.9K
- AUAustralia1 in 2K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈31K ●
- Sources
- 429 ●
- 1 in 241 ◐
across 19 countries
411K records
Official registry-verified
Guyana
Meaning & origin●
Scottish surname of uncertain origin and meaning
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | #302 | 63,470 | 65K rec. | — | 52 | Fraser | 220 |
| AU Australia | #165 | 41,578 | 47K rec. | — | 4 | Fraser | 219 |
| CA Canada | #175 | 27,330 | 28K rec. | — | 2 | Fraser | 223 |
| US United States | — | 25,961 | 242K rec. | 1 in 13K | 26K | Fraser | 429 |
| NZ New Zealand | #112 | 3,995 | 4.2K rec. | — | 12 | Fraser | 120 |
| ZA South Africa | #824 | 3,163 | 3.7K rec. | — | — | Fraser | 93 |
| GY Guyana | #9 | 3,119 | 3K rec. | 1 in 241 | 3.1K | Fraser | 17 |
| IT Italy | — | 1,299 | 1.4K rec. | — | — | Fraser | 37 |
| DE Germany | — | 1,230 | 1.4K rec. | — | — | Fraser | 75 |
| JM Jamaica | #119 | 1,161 | 1.2K rec. | — | — | Fraser | 26 |
| IL Israel | — | 826 | 875 rec. | — | — | Fraser | 10 |
| GD Grenada | — | 289 | 288 rec. | 1 in 391 | 289 | — | 9 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English382K80%
- Welsh30K6%
- Spanish13K3%
- French5K1%
- 4.7K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 381,511 | 80% |
| Welsh | 30,124 | 6% |
| Spanish | 13,411 | 3% |
| French | 5,016 | 1% |
| 4,667 | 1% |
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●
Fraser 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, Norman French surname from Normandy; in Scotland Symon ffraser gave the church of Kelso c.1160.
as a nameScottish Surnames
Scottish: transferred use of the surname of a leading Scottish family. The surname is of Norman origin, but its exact derivation is uncertain. The earliest forms recorded are de Frisselle and de Fresel(iere), but it was altered, possibly by association with Old French fraise ‘strawberry’. Variants: Frazer, Frazier.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A Scottish surname from Old French thought to be of Norman origin.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, River, Canada
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Scottish: transferred use of the surname of a leading Highland and Lowland family. The surname is undoubtedly of Norman origin, but its exact derivation is uncertain. The earliest forms are de Frisselle and de Fresel(iere) , but the name seems to have been altered by association with Old French fraise strawberry. Variant: Frazer .
as a word
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●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1915 | 5 |
| 1916 | 7 |
| 1917 | 7 |
| 1918 | 8 |
| 1919 | 7 |
| 1920 | 8 |
| 1926 | 7 |
| 1929 | 6 |
| 1935 | 8 |
| 1937 | 10 |
| 1940 | 5 |
| 1941 | 5 |
| 1942 | 6 |
| 1943 | 7 |
| 1945 | 6 |
| 1947 | 5 |
| 1948 | 5 |
| 1949 | 8 |
| 1950 | 8 |
| 1951 | 6 |
| 1952 | 5 |
| 1953 | 8 |
| 1955 | 5 |
| 1958 | 6 |
| 1960 | 5 |
| 1962 | 5 |
| 1963 | 11 |
| 1964 | 7 |
| 1965 | 9 |
| 1966 | 6 |
| 1968 | 7 |
| 1970 | 5 |
| 1971 | 7 |
| 1972 | 6 |
| 1980 | 7 |
| 1981 | 7 |
| 1982 | 5 |
| 1983 | 5 |
| 1984 | 7 |
| 1985 | 5 |
| 1986 | 7 |
| 1987 | 5 |
| 1988 | 8 |
| 1989 | 7 |
| 1990 | 11 |
| 1991 | 8 |
| 1992 | 9 |
| 1993 | 7 |
| 1994 | 8 |
| 1995 | 5 |
| 1996 | 5 |
| 1997 | 5 |
| 1998 | 7 |
| 1999 | 8 |
| 2000 | 6 |
| 2001 | 11 |
| 2003 | 8 |
| 2004 | 6 |
| 2005 | 5 |
| 2007 | 8 |
| 2009 | 7 |
| 2010 | 13 |
| 2014 | 10 |
| 2015 | 5 |
| 2016 | 5 |
| 2017 | 11 |
| 2019 | 5 |
| 2020 | 13 |
| 2021 | 15 |
| 2022 | 13 |
| 2023 | 10 |
| 2024 | 22 |
| 2025 | 16 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 73 years between 1915–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Peter Fraserb. 1884NZNew Zealand politician (1884–1950)
- George MacDonald Fraserb. 1925GBEnglish-born author of Scottish descent
- Malcolm Fraserb. 1930AUAustralian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia (1930-2015)
- Neale Fraserb. 1933AUAustralian tennis player (1933–2024)
- Dawn Fraserb. 1937AUAustralian swimmer and politician
- Jacqueline Bissetb. 1944GBnot in their usual nameEnglish actress
- Hugh Fraserb. 1945GBEnglish actor and theatre director
- Brendan Fraserb. 1968USCanadian-American actor (born 1968)
- Greig Fraserb. 1975AUAustralian cinematographer
- Laura Fraserb. 1976GBScottish actress (born 1975)
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 67 sources across 37 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 26K | #1,358 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 25K | #1,383 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 25K | #1,312 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 3.1K | #18 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 798 | #14,005 |
| GD Grenada | Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025 | 2025 | 289 | #47 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 252 | #79 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 229 | #14,964 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 229 | #14,906 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 191 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 154 | #10,281 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 140 | #14,324 |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 462 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Fraser?
- We estimate roughly 31 thousand people bear Fraser (counting its spellings and scripts) across 19 countries in our records.
- In which country does Fraser have the most bearers?
- Fraser is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled fraser.
- Where is Fraser most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Fraser is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 241 people — even though United Kingdom holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Fraser compared with other names?
- In the United Kingdom, Fraser is the 302nd most common surname of 1,169,970 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Fraser mean?
- Recorded meaning: Scottish surname of uncertain origin and meaning
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/fraserThe 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
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, “Fraser” — the 302nd most common surname in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.