Explore the Family Name De Fries

The meaning of De Fries

1. Dutch: variant, mostly Americanized, of De Vries ‘the Frisian’. This form of the surname is no longer found in the Netherlands. 2. Variant (Defries) of Defrees 2, a surname of French origin (see Deforest). Compare Defriece and Defriese.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name De Fries in the United States?

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname De Fries has been relatively stable in popularity over a decade. In 2000, it was ranked as the 27,694th most popular surname, with this rank marginally dropping to 28,158th in 2010. This represents a slight decrease of 1.68%. However, the actual count of individuals with the De Fries surname increased from 818 in 2000 to 850 in 2010, showing an increase of 3.91%. The proportion per 100,000 people slightly decreased from 0.3 to 0.29 during the same period.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#27,694	#28,158	-1.68%
Count	818	850	3.91%
Proportion per 100k	0.3	0.29	-3.33%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name De Fries

Regarding ethnicity, the Decennial U.S. Census data for De Fries shows that it's predominantly associated with people of White ethnic identity. In 2000, 91.44% of bearers of the surname identified as White, which decreased slightly to 89.41% in 2010. The representation of Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaskan Native identities also saw changes, but these groups make up a smaller portion of individuals with the De Fries surname. Notably, the percentage of De Fries bearers identifying with two or more races significantly increased from 2.69% in 2000 to 4.94% in 2010, a change of 83.64%.

	2000	2010	Change
White	91.44%	89.41%	-2.22%
Two or More Races	2.69%	4.94%	83.64%
Asian/Pacific Islander	3.79%	3.41%	-10.03%
Hispanic	1.34%	1.53%	14.18%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0.73%	0.71%	-2.74%
Black	0%	0%	0%