Family name origins & meanings
- English : variant spelling of Fry.
- North German : variant of Frey.
- Joseph Frye (1711/12–94) was a military officer from Andover, MA, where the family had long been of local prominence. In 1762, he was granted a township in ME, later named Fryeburg after him, and moved his family there. His great-great-grandson William Pierce Frye was born in Lewiston, ME, and served in Congress, first as a member of the House of Representatives and then the Senate from 1871 until his death in 1911.