I always remember “mode” as coming from “moda”, i.e. popular. The mode is the peak of the distribution, the most “fashionable” number.

Maybe it’s fake etymology, but it works

I was sure this was the etymology, but apparently "mode" in statistics is quite a modern use, from a work by Pearson in 1895 in English. Whether he was influenced by the Romance languages is not clear, but there certainly isn't a direct path from Latin or French as one might have expected.

https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/7675/what-is-the-ety...