Rocco
Masculine · “Most likely Germanic: 'rest”
Rocco is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 31,679 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Rocco is the Italian form of a name carried through Europe by Saint Roch of Montpellier, the fourteenth-century pilgrim invoked against plague, whose August feast is still walked through streets in Puglia, Campania and the Italian neighborhoods of New York and Philadelphia. Two syllables, a hard double-c in the middle, and an open vowel at each end — it lands cleanly in an American mouth without losing its Italian shape.
How old is the name Rocco?
Rocco first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Rocco alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 22,500 people named Rocco are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rocco most popular?
Rocco peaked in 1922, reaching #281 nationally. Today it ranks #459, 178 places below that high. See the whole 1922 chart.
Rocco appears on these lists:
Works in Italian families too:
Where it comes from
From Hrok to Rocco
The story of Rocco
The name belongs first to Saint Roch, born at Montpellier in the fourteenth century, who is remembered for tending plague victims in Italy and became one of the most widely venerated saints of the late Middle Ages — which is why the Latin Rochus produced a local form in nearly every Catholic language: Roch in French, Roque in Spanish and Portuguese, Rocco in Italian. Southern Italy took to him with particular force, and towns from Campania to Sicily still hold San Rocco feasts each August. Italian emigration carried the name to the United States in the late nineteenth century, and it appeared in American records within that same wave. It has never left them since, and its strongest footing is still in the states where those families settled.
Meaningscholars disagree
Most likely Germanic: 'rest, repose' — though 'crow' is the serious rival
The name reaches us in Latin as Rochus, and scholars trace it to a Germanic root. One reading takes it from hrok, 'rest' or 'repose'; another from the same-sounding Germanic word for the crow or rook. Neither has won the argument, and no Latin or Greek source explains it away.
How the name formed
- Hrok
- Rochus
- Roch
- Rocco
Related forms: Roch · Roque · Roque · Rochus · Roc · Rókus
Pronouncing Rocco
ROCK-oh
The double c before o is a hard k sound, held slightly longer in Italian than English speakers usually give it. Stress falls on the first syllable in both languages.
Nicknames for Rocco
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1891
- Most boys named
- 2009785 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #281reached in 1922
- Change vs 2022
- +16.9%679 in 2025, from 581
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Rocco in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Roch in French — same name
- Roque in Spanish — same name
- Roque in Portuguese — same name
- Rochus in Latin — same name
- Roc in Catalan — same name
- Rókus in Hungarian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Pennsylvania.
Roccos among us
people named Rocco are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 2,516 born in 2025 was named Rocco
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Herschel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rocco's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Herschel climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Herschel's path sketches the road Rocco is walking now.
Rocco sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Rocco is headed
Rocco should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Rocco beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rocco in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds for an English speaker, and short enough to be read correctly on the first try.
- On US records continuously since the late nineteenth century, without a gap or a revival — a long, unbroken line.
- Has an established short form in Rocky that also stands alone as a name.
- Recognizable across French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Italian, each with its own settled local form.
- Rocky is close at hand for anyone who wants it, and it comes with strong boxing-movie associations. That may be exactly the nickname you like, or one you will spend years steering people away from.
- The name reads as distinctly Italian, which is part of its appeal for many families and a slight mismatch for others. It sits differently on a child with an Italian surname than on one without.
- It is not evenly spread across the country. In the Northeast the name is familiar and expected; elsewhere people will have heard it but may pause over the double c when writing it down.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Rocco to the vote.
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What they receive
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Rocco
Masculine · #459 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Roccos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 22,500 people named Rocco are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rocco in 2025?
- Rocco ranks #459 among US boy names in 2025, with 679 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rocco?
- About 1 in every 2,516 US boys born in 2025 was named Rocco — 679 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rocco with classmates?
- Rocco will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rocco
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Reece#460 · Johnny#457 · Jake#457 · Esteban#461 · Lucian#462 · Pedro#455 · Mack#463 · Sage#455
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rocco? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rocco and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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