Rodriguez
Masculine · “son of Rodrigo”
Rodriguez is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 952 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Rodriguez is a patronymic that stopped being one. It means the son of Rodrigo, and it meant that literally for a few centuries before Spanish surnames froze and the phrase became a family name that no longer described anybody's father. In America it has since become a first name as well, given almost entirely to sons.
How old is the name Rodriguez?
Rodriguez first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Rodriguez alive today was born around 1983, making them about 42 years old. About 900 people named Rodriguez are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rodriguez most popular?
Rodriguez peaked in 1981, reaching #1373 nationally. See the whole 1981 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Germanic elements for fame and rule give the name Roderick to Rodriguez
The story of Rodriguez
The Rodrigo in the name has a famous namesake and a catastrophic reputation. Rodrigo was the last king of the Visigoths, and in 711 he met an invading force from North Africa at a river in the south of Spain and lost — comprehensively enough that the whole peninsula changed hands within a few years and stayed changed for centuries. His body was never found, which meant the story could go anywhere, and it did: Spanish ballads made him a penitent, an exile, a man walled up with a serpent, a figure of national self-reproach for the better part of a thousand years. So a surname carried by millions of people descends from a name that Spanish tradition made into a byword for losing a country in an afternoon.
Meaning
son of Rodrigo
The ending is a Spanish patronymic suffix, the same one that gives Fernández, Martínez, González and Sánchez — and the personal name in front of it is the Spanish form of a Germanic compound about fame and rule, brought into Iberia by the Visigoths and kept there long after they were gone. The derivation is agreed in every particular. What the name no longer does is describe a father, which is the ordinary fate of patronymics everywhere.
How the name formed
- Germanic elements for fame and rule give the name Roderick
- The Visigoths carry it into Iberia, where it becomes Rodrigo
- 711: the last Visigothic king loses Spain at the Guadalete
- Spanish forms the patronymic Rodríguez, then freezes it as a surname
- American parents use the surname as a first name for both sexes
Related forms: Rodríguez · Rodrigues · Rodrigo · Roderick
Pronouncing Rodriguez
rod-REE-gess
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Spanish writes an accent on that syllable to mark it, and English drops the accent while keeping the stress. The final z is a soft s sound in Latin American Spanish and a th in most of Spain.
Nicknames for Rodriguez
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
- 1955
- Most boys named
- 198147 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1373reached in 1981
- Change vs 2016
- −33.3%8 in 2017, from 12
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.
Rodriguez in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Rodríguez in Spanish — same name
- Rodrigues in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Rodrigo in Spanish — related form
- Roderick in English — related form
Rodriguezs among us
people named Rodriguez 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
Rodriguez 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
- One of the most widely recognized names in the Spanish-speaking world
- Two established short forms, one English and plain, one Spanish and warm
- A documented history reaching back to the Visigothic kingdoms
- It is overwhelmingly a surname, so as a first name it produces the which-name-is-which question on every form.
- The accent that Spanish writes is usually lost in American records, which changes nothing in speech but a good deal on paper.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
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Rodriguez
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Rodriguezs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Rodriguez are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rodriguez in 2025?
- Rodriguez is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Rodriguez with classmates?
- Rodriguez will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More R names
The most-given names starting with R, all years combined.
Robert#92 · Richard#234 · Ronald#637 · Ryan#99 · Raymond#394 · Roger#832 · Ralph#1046 · Roy#525
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rodriguez? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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