Rocky
Feminine · “rock" in the English sense”
Rocky is given to boys far more often — 28,687 boys against 447 girls since 1880. See Rocky as a boy name
Rocky entered the US charts in 1949, peaked at #3019 in 1954, ranks #3517 in 2025 — given to only a few children a year.
How old is the name Rocky?
Rocky first appears in US birth records in 1949 — 76 years ago. The typical Rocky is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 400 people named Rocky are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rocky most popular?
Rocky peaked in 1954, reaching #3019 nationally. Today it ranks #3517, 498 places below that high. See the whole 1954 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Rocco to Rocky
The story of Rocky
Rocco has a long life in Italy, spread widely by devotion to San Rocco, the fourteenth-century pilgrim saint of Montpellier invoked against plague, whose name also survives as French Roch and Spanish Roque. Italian families who settled in the United States kept Rocco on baptismal certificates and used Rocky everywhere else — school, work, the ring — and the short form took on a life of its own on the record. Alongside it, English speakers reached the same spelling straight through the word rock, which is why some Rockys have no Italian branch at all. The boxing culture of the mid-twentieth century, and later the film franchise that borrowed its rhythm, fixed the name in American ears for good.
Meaningscholars disagree
"rock" in the English sense, or a short form of Rocco
Two genuine roads meet at this spelling. One is the ordinary English word rock and its adjective rocky, used as a name the way Stone or Cliff are. The other runs through Italian Rocco, whose older Germanic root is itself unsettled — read either as a word for rest or as a word for crow. Both roads are real in American usage, and a given Rocky may belong to either.
How the name formed
- Rocco
- Roch
- Rocky
Related forms: Rocco · Roque · Roch · Roque · Roko · Roch
Pronouncing Rocky
ROK-ee
Stress on the first syllable, rhyming with hockey. Two syllables in every language that has borrowed it, and essentially never mispronounced by English speakers.
Nicknames for Rocky
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
- 1949
- Most girls named
- 202543 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3019reached in 1954
- Change vs 2024
- +7.5%43 in 2025, from 40
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.
Rocky in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Rocco in Italian — related form
- Roque in Spanish — related form
- Roch in French — related form
- Roque in Portuguese — related form
- Roko in Croatian — related form
- Roch in Polish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Utah.
Rockys among us
people named Rocky are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 37,378 born in 2025 was named Rocky
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Rocky
- #3517
- Rocky on the 2025 chart
- #907
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Rocky went to 43 girls in 2025, but Rocki is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 53, which makes it the 907th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,610 places above the chart.
- Rocky43
- Rocki10
About 1 girl in 30,326 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 37,378 for Rocky itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Anella test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rocky's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Anella climbed just as high around 1918, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Anella's path sketches the road Rocky is walking now.
Rocky 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 Rocky is headed
Rocky is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 60% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Rocky beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rocky in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Rocky
Feminine · #3517 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rockys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Rocky are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Rocky?
- Rocky is the most-used spelling in US records — 43 of the 53 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Rocki.
- How popular is the name Rocky in 2025?
- Rocky ranks #3517 among US girl names in 2025, with 43 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rocky?
- About 1 in every 37,378 US girls born in 2025 was named Rocky — 43 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rocky with classmates?
- Rocky will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rocky
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Maida#3517 · Amada#3517 · Afton#3517 · Allura#3517 · Jaina#3517 · Hallee#3517 · Katara#3517 · Joella#3517
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rocky? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rocky and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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