fröhlich

Fröhlich is a German surname derived from the adjective fröhlich, meaning cheerful or merry. It originated as a nickname for a cheerful person and later became a hereditary family name. The standard spelling includes the umlaut over the o; in environments without umlauts it is often written Froehlich.

As a surname, Fröhlich is most common in German-speaking countries and among communities of German descent abroad. It appears across various fields and has been borne by numerous individuals in science, engineering, the arts, and public life. In English-language contexts, the name is sometimes transliterated as Froehlich.

Notable people with the name include Herbert Fröhlich (1903–1991), a German-born American theoretical physicist known for work in solid-state physics and for the Fröhlich polaron model, which describes an electron interacting with lattice vibrations in polar crystals. Klaus Fröhlich (born 1957) is a German engineer and former head of development at BMW AG, where he oversaw product and technology strategy during his tenure.

In scholarly and scientific contexts, the surname has become associated with specific concepts named after bearers, such as the Fröhlich polaron model. The name continues to be encountered in academic and professional settings, reflecting its Germanic origins and the international distribution of people bearing it.