Frederick William True (July 8, 1858 – June 25, 1914) was an American biologist, the first head curator of biology (1897–1911) at the United States National Museum, now part of the Smithsonian Institution.^[1]

He was born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1858. He received a B.S. from the University of New York in 1878, when he entered the U.S. government service.^[2] He was expert special agent on fisheries for the 10th census, 1879.^[2] In 1881, True started working for the U.S. National Museum as a clerk.^[3] That year he became librarian and acting curator of mammals, which positions he filled until 1883. True was curator of mammals at the U.S. National Museum (1883-1909), curator of comparative anatomy (1885-1890), executive curator (1894-1897), head curator of biology (1897-1911) and assistant secretary in charge of the library and international exchange service (1911-1914).^[1] He was appointed to the board of the American Philosophical Society, of which he was already a member, on March 2, 1900.^[4][5]

He started his career studying invertebrates,^[1] but his poor eyesight obligated him to give up studies with the microscope,^[3] and he turned to studies of cetaceans and their relatives.^[1] True's beaked whale,^[6] True's vole and True's shrew mole were named by him, and have vernacular names in his honor.

• "Note on the occurrence of an armadillo of the genus Xenurus in Honduras"^[7]
• Review of the Family of Delphinidae
• Whalebone Whales of the Western North Atlantic (1904)
• Observations on Living White Whales (1911)

He married Louis Elvina Prentiss in 1887, and at his death two of their children were living.^[3] He was the son of Methodist clergyman and writer Charles Kittredge True. His brother Alfred Charles True was a noted agricultural educationist.