This surname is medieval French, but arguably of earlier German origins. Recorded in spellings which include Fredi, Freddi, and Fredy, as Freddi it is the family surname of the Countes Freddi of Mantoue, in France. The surname is one of the many derivatives of the ancient personal surname 'Frederick', which was originally composed of the pre 5th century Germanic elements 'frid' meaning peace and 'ric', power, and like Albert and Heinrich a typical name of the period of history known as 'The Dark Ages'. This was the period after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century a.d., to the coming of the Emperor Charlemagne of the Frankish Empire in the 9th century. It is claimed that the popularity of 'Frederick' as a personal name reached its height with the canonisation of Bishop Frederick of Utrecht in circa 850 a.d., and this may well be so. It was also the hereditary first name of the eldest sons of the family Hohenstaufens, hereditary rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for several centuries, and this association was also of some considerable assistance in promoting the popularity of the baptismal name. An example of the surname recording taken from a survivng church register of the pre 1792 Revolution is that of Sabastian Fredy, whose son Bartelmy, was born at Villers-le-Nancy, in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, on March 5th 1708.

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