Holiday Calendar

National Frances Day

Next celebratedSunday, June 13, 2027

Fannie Coralie Perkins renamed herself Frances at twenty-five and kept it through marriage, a Cabinet post and a 2024 presidential proclamation that records the change. June 13 belongs to everyone who carries the name she picked.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJune 13
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
“The name is older than the calendar entry by many centuries.
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The paperwork runs out at the date.

No founder, establishment record or sponsoring organisation for National Frances Day has been identified, and no source documents why it falls on June 13. It circulates as one entry in the large family of name-based observances that live on calendar listings rather than in any establishing document.

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INTRO

A cabinet secretary who chose her own first name

National Frances Day lands on a name that one of its best-known American bearers was not given. She was born Fannie Coralie Perkins in Boston in 1880. At twenty-five she changed her name to Frances Perkins, and used it for the rest of her life, even after marriage.

That detail is not family lore. It is written into the text of a Presidential Proclamation, signed on December 16, 2024.

Fannie was never a different name. It is one of the recorded short forms of Frances, alongside Fran, Frankie and Franny. Perkins traded the pet form for the formal one and never went back.

The name she picked was a common one. American girls have received it 343,509 times in the last hundred years, which places Frances 97th on the Social Security Administration's own table of the century's top names.

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ORIGINS

Frances Day history

INTRODUCTION

Frances and Francis differ by a single letter. The rule about which spelling goes to whom is far younger than the name itself.

The distinction between Francis as a man's name and Frances as a woman's did not arise until the 17th century, on the authority of the Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names.

Nor has the convention ever been absolute. American birth records list 5,024 boys given the name Frances since 1880, against far larger numbers of girls in every one of those years.

CHAPTER 01

Maria Francesca, canonized in English

The name crosses languages more easily than it crosses paperwork. A girl born in Lombardy on July 15, 1850 was baptised Maria Francesca Cabrini, in the Italian form.

She was canonized on July 7, 1946, under the English spelling instead. The saint is Frances Xavier Cabrini. The baby was Francesca.

CHAPTER 02

The name Frances Perkins would not give up

Having chosen her first name, Frances Perkins then refused to give up her last. She married Paul Caldwell Wilson in 1913 and kept her surname, which the Frances Perkins Center describes as incredibly rare and controversial for the time.

The Center gives two reasons. She wanted to preserve her own identity, and she had already made a name for herself.

That identity reached a Cabinet door in 1933. Roosevelt made her Secretary of Labor, the first woman to hold any Cabinet post, and she stayed twelve years.

The proclamation credits her with chairing Roosevelt's effort to investigate social insurance, and then with working to achieve passage of the Social Security Act.

The observance that now carries the name has none of this behind it. No founder, no establishing record and no sponsoring organisation for National Frances Day has been located, and no source explains the June date.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Maria Francesca is born in Lombardy

The future Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini is born on July 15 in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, under the Italian form of the name.

Frances Perkins keeps her surname

She marries Paul Caldwell Wilson and does not take his name, keeping Perkins for the rest of her public life.

The first woman in a US Cabinet

Franklin Roosevelt appoints Perkins Secretary of Labor. She holds the post for twelve years.

Canonized under the English spelling

On July 7 the woman baptised Maria Francesca is canonized as Frances Xavier Cabrini.

A Frances at the White House

On August 7 President Kennedy presents Frances Oldham Kelsey with the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service. She is its second woman recipient.

The Perkins Homestead becomes federal land

A proclamation signed on December 16 establishes the Frances Perkins National Monument on roughly 2.3 acres in Newcastle, Maine.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Frances Day by the Numbers

8th
Frances peak US rank, 1918
16,132
US girls named Frances in 1918
15
Years Frances held a US top-ten place
It started out, 'Dear Mr. Oldham,' and here my conscience tweaked me a bit. I knew that men were the preferred commodity in those days.
Frances Oldham KelseyFDA medical officer, on her 1936 University of Chicago offer letter
For her courage in entering an arena previously considered a masculine domain; for her strength in guiding the Department through a dozen years of domestic stress and international travail; for her spirit in waging the good fight for good objectives; and finally, for herself.
US Department of LaborAward for Distinguished Service citation to Frances Perkins, March 4, 1963

GOOD TO KNOW

National Frances Day Around the World

Italy

Francesca, the form Cabrini was baptised under

France

Françoise, with Francine as a second French form

Germany

Franziska

Spain

Francisca, a form Dutch and Portuguese share

Poland

Franciszka

Scotland

Frangag, the Scottish Gaelic form

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Frances Day Matters

CONTINUITY

No year since 1880 lacks an American Frances.

Frances appears as a girls' name in every annual national birth file from 1880 through 2025, for 595,697 births in total. Not one year in that run is missing it.

CALENDAR

June 13 carries no Frances tradition

Behind the Name's June 13 page assigns name days for 18 countries, from Austria to Sweden, and Frances is on none of those lists. A second independent name-day calendar returns a full June 13 country list without her.

OBJECTS

One Frances still signs a doorway in Maine

A custom sign still hangs above a doorway at the Perkins Homestead, which the proclamation says reflects the lasting influence on her of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire she witnessed in 1911. It reads: Please Do Not SMOKE In Any Part of This Building. DANGEROUS. F. Perkins.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Frances Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Read the proclamation that records a name change

The December 2024 text establishing the Frances Perkins National Monument opens on her life rather than on the land. It states her birth name and the age at which she changed it.

LOOK

Look the name up in the federal birth records

The Social Security Administration publishes the most common American given names of the last hundred years. It is the quickest way to see where Frances sits against the names around it.

LEARN

Learn what separates Frances from Francis

One spelling is conventionally the woman's and one the man's, and that convention dates to the 17th century. A reference dictionary of English Christian names is where the ruling was written down.

ASK

Ask the Franceses you know which short form they use

Fran, Fannie, Frankie, Franny, Cissy and Sissy are all recorded diminutives of the same name. The full spelling is often not the one in daily use.

READ

Read Frances Oldham Kelsey on her first job offer

Her own recollection of the 1936 letter that brought her to Chicago quotes its opening line exactly. She took the job anyway, and added a correction to her signature.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Frances Day?

1 / 8

How old was Frances Perkins when she changed her name to Frances?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found, so June 13 is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

10sources
5primary records
4independently dated
Primary records
The White House2024-12-16
A Proclamation on the Establishment of the Frances Perkins National Monument
The December 2024 proclamation, which records her birth name and the 1963 award citation.
View source
Social Security Administration2026-03
Top Names Over the Last 100 Years
The agency's ranking of the 100 most common American given names, 1926 to 2025.
View source
Social Security Administration2026-08-27
National baby name data, 1880 to 2025
An archived copy of the annual national name files behind every yearly count here.
View source
National Library of Medicine
Biography: Dr. Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey
Her career, the thalidomide review, and the August 1962 award from President Kennedy.
View source
Frances Perkins Center
Her Life
The Center's chronology, including her 1913 marriage and her decision to keep her surname.
View source
Additional coverage
National Endowment for the Humanities
Mother Cabrini, the First American Saint of the Catholic Church
Her birth as Maria Francesca Cabrini in 1850 and her canonization on July 7, 1946.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Frances
Dates the masculine and feminine split to the 17th century, and lists the diminutives and foreign forms.
View source
Behind the Name
June 13 Name Days
Name-day assignments for 18 national calendars on June 13.
View source
University of Chicago Magazine2026
Keeping watch
Frances Oldham Kelsey's own account of the offer letter that brought her to Chicago in 1936.
View source
Online Etymology Dictionary
Frances
Traces Frances through Old French Franceise to Late Latin Franciscus, literally Frankish.
View source
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