Rochell
Feminine · “little rock”
Rochell is given to both — 1,619 girls and 92 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Rochell drops the final e from a name taken from a French port, and the port is worth knowing about twice over. It held out against a royal siege for more than a year and lost its independence when it fell, and it gave its name to a salt that turned out, two centuries later, to be the first substance ever shown to make electricity when you squeeze it.
How old is the name Rochell?
Rochell first appears in US birth records in 1919 — 106 years ago. The typical Rochell alive today was born around 1972, making them about 53 years old. About 1,500 people named Rochell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rochell most popular?
Rochell peaked in 1965, reaching #1489 nationally. See the whole 1965 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A French port named for its rock to Rochell
The story of Rochell
The town was the great Protestant stronghold of western France, effectively a self-governing republic with its own fleet, and in the seventeen months of the siege that ended it the population fell by something like four fifths. When it surrendered, the walls came down and the privileges went with them. Two centuries later an apothecary there was making a purgative salt that took the town's name, and in the eighteen eighties two brothers experimenting with crystals found that this one produced a measurable electric charge when compressed. That was the discovery of piezoelectricity, and Rochelle salt stayed the material of choice for microphones and phonograph pickups well into the twentieth century. A town remembered for a siege also sits at the beginning of the technology that let anybody record a voice.
Meaning
little rock
The place name is built from the French word for a rock with a diminutive ending, describing the outcrop the settlement grew around. As a personal name it is a place name used directly, so the meaning belongs to the geography rather than to the person. The missing final e in this spelling changes nothing about the sound and only affects how French the name looks on paper.
How the name formed
- A French port named for its rock
- The siege that ended its independence
- Rochelle as a personal name in English
- Rochell, with the final e dropped
Related forms: Rochelle
Pronouncing Rochell
roh-SHELL
Two syllables with the stress at the back and the ch said as sh, following the French. The missing final e makes no audible difference at all; both spellings are said identically.
Nicknames for Rochell
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
- 1919
- Most girls named
- 197159 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1489reached in 1965
- Change vs 2005
- 0.0%5 in 2008, from 5
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.
Rochell in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Rochelle in French — spelling variant
Rochells among us
people named Rochell are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Rochell sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The sound is completely familiar and the back stress gives it a lift.
- Shell is immediate, warm and needs no explanation anywhere.
- It has a real place behind it with two genuinely good stories attached.
- Rochelle is the standard spelling and this one will be corrected into it regularly.
- The spelling is on the register for boys as well as girls, in small numbers.
- It reads as strongly mid-century in American ears and has not returned.
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What they receive
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Rochell
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Rochells are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Rochell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rochell in 2025?
- Rochell is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Rochell with classmates?
- Rochell will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More R names
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rochell? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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