My maiden name is Freise. I was told that in Germany, Freise is like Smith in North America.?

Question

I was told that it is a very common name in Germany. Was wondering if anyone from Germany could verify this? Thanks ahead of time!

Answer 1

Well - the equivalent for Smith is Schmidt.
Freise is not THAT common.
Comparison: German Phone Directory - 203.247 official entries for Schmidt / 845 official entries for Freise.
Not really that much. So you do not have such a common maiden surname ;-)

Answer 2

A search of the German white pages came back with 842 people name Freise.

A search of Geneanet (a European genealogy site) came back with 116 entries in Germany, Alsace and Lorraine going back to the 1600s.
http://search.geneanet.org/result.php3?lang=en&name=freise&place=&country=&source=&x=29&y=6

Here's the result of the name search at Ancestry.de (the German database equiv. to the US's Ancestry.com):
http://search.ancestry.de/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=allgs&gst=&rank=1&=%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c&gsfn=&gsln=freise&gsby=&gsb2co=1%2cAlle+L%c3%a4nder&gsb2pl=1%2c+&gsdy=&gsd2co=1%2cAlle+L%c3%a4nder&gsd2pl=1%2c+&sbo=0&ufr=0&wp=4%3b_80000002%3b_80000003&srchb=r&prox=1&db=&ti=5545&ti.si=0&gss=angs-b&ghc=50

I wouldn't say it's as common as Schmidt or Braun, but it's not "uncommon".

Answer 3

Looking at this site
http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa050399.htm
and at this one http://german.about.com/od/germanicgenealogy/a/50surnames.htm
Neither one of which mentions the name and the fact that you don't hear the name in the news pretty much kills that idea. Schmidt is common = smith
try ancestry.com

Answer 4

posting a link for you to have a look at
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact.aspx?&fid=5&fn=&ln=freise
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact.aspx?&fid=10&ln=freise&fn=
hope it helps you a little.