Francois
Francois is a boy's name that peaked in 1992, when it was the 1,884th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 5,208th. About 1,400 Francoises are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 38.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Francois boys named Francois
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,823
- Estimated living today
- 1,400
- Median age today
- 38
- Peak year
- 1992
- Best rank
- 1,884th
- Rank in 2025
- 5,208th
- First recorded
- 1912
- Girls / boys
- 5 / 1,818
How old the living Francoises are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,823 babies given the name since 1912, about 1,400 are alive — 79 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1987 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Francoiss
- François Hollande (born 1954)President of France from 2012 to 2017
- François Mitterrand (1916–1996)21st President of the French Republic from 1981 to 1995
- François Rabelais (1494–1553)16th-century French writer and humanist
- François Mauriac (1885–1970)French writer
- François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)French author of maxims and memoirs
- François Truffaut (1932–1984)French film director
- François Villon (1431–1463)French poet and criminal
- François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848)French writer, politician and historian
People named Francois with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Francois is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Francois is most concentrated in New York (6.4×), California (3.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1992
The most popular boys’ names the year Francois peaked:
Francois elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | François +1 spelling | 399,075 | 22nd |
| Belgium boys | François | 1,841 | 67th |
| France girls | François | 230 | 735th |
| Switzerland boys | François | 112 | 527th |
| England and Wales boys | Francois | 101 | 2,335th |
| Poland boys | François | 9 birth registrations | 594th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Francois: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | François | 13 | 0.001% | 1,284th |
| French boys | Switzerland | François | 98 | 0.023% | 193rd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | François | 1 | 0.002% | 179th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Francois is most concentrated in Vaud, where 0.02% of children were given it – 27 of them.
Francois: rank by region
In 2024, Francois was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | François | 418 | 6 |
In 2023, Francois was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Francois | 9 | 2 |
In 2019, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Francois appears in the lists for Province of Liège (167th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Francois among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | François | 2,341 | 6,956 |
| the Netherlands girls | François | — | 134 |
| Finland boys | François +1 spelling | 11 | 69 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Francois lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 390 men called François were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | François | 48 | 0.048 | 1,365 |
| Girona | François | 15 | 0.036 | 1,602 |
| Lleida | François | 8 | 0.034 | 1,683 |
| Almería | François | 13 | 0.033 | 1,663 |
| Barcelona | François | 73 | 0.025 | 1,960 |
| Murcia | François | 19 | 0.024 | 1,819 |
Listed in 20 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 32 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Francois against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.