Origin and popularity of the name FRANK

Origin

Frank : 1: German Dutch Scandinavian Slovenian Croatian Czech Slovak Polish Hungarian and Jewish (Ashkenazic): ethnic or habitational name for someone from Franconia (German Franken) a region of southwestern Germany so called from its early settlement by the Franks an ancient Germanic people who inhabited the lands around the River Rhine in Roman times. In the 6th–9th centuries under leaders such as Clovis I (c. 466–511) and Charlemagne (742–814) the Franks established a substantial empire in western Europe from which the country of France takes its name.2: English (of Norman origin) Dutch and German: from the personal name Frank (Norman French Franco ancient Germanic Franko) in origin an ethnic name for a Frank or from German Franke ‘Frank(ish) Franconian’ (compare 1 above). This also came to be used as an adjective meaning ‘free open-hearted generous’ (Middle English and Old French franc ‘free’ i.e. not a serf or slave) deriving from the fact that in Frankish Gaul only people of Frankish race enjoyed the status of fully free men. As a surname of German origin it is also found (in both possible meanings; see 1 above) in France (Alsace and Lorraine). Compare Franc and Franck.

Franc : 1: French and Catalan: from the ancient Germanic personal name Franko in origin an ethnic name for a Frank which also came to be used as an adjective meaning ‘free open-hearted generous’ (Old French franc ‘free’ i.e. not a serf or slave); see Frank 2. Compare French Franck 2.2: Polish Czech and Slovak: from a Slavicized form of the German personal name Franz.3: Slovenian and Croatian: from a vernacular form of the personal names Slovenian Frančišek Croatian Francisko (from Latin Franciscus; see Francis) derived from or influenced by German Franz. Compare Frantz 2 and Franck 4.

Franco : 1: Spanish and Italian: from the personal name Franco in origin an ethnic name for a Frank (see Frank 2).2: Italian and Spanish: nickname or status name from franco ‘free’ (usually denoting a freed slave).3: Americanized form of Slovenian Slovak Rusyn Czech and perhaps also Polish Franko.4: Spanish and Jewish (Sephardic): habitational name from one of the Spanish towns called (El) Franco.5: Jewish (Sephardic): adoption of the Spanish surname (see 1 above) at the moment of conversion to Roman Catholicism. After the return to Judaism (generations later) some descendants retained the name their families used as Catholics.

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 87,790 individuals with the name FRANK on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name FRANK