Roe
Masculine · “Middle English ro”
Roe is given to both — 909 boys and 210 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
English law needed names for people who could not be named, and it chose John Doe and Richard Roe. The pair appear in eighteenth-century ejectment actions as fictitious parties, and they survive today in Jane Roe and every anonymous filing. Roe was a real name first and a legal placeholder afterwards.
How old is the name Roe?
Roe first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Roe alive today was born around 1931, making them about 94 years old. About 300 people named Roe are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Roe most popular?
Roe peaked in 1881, reaching #595 nationally. Today it ranks #8910, 8,315 places below that high. See the whole 1881 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ro to Roe
The story of Roe
The fictitious names of English pleading come from the action of ejectment, a legal fiction used from the seventeenth century to try questions of land title. The procedure required a lease, an entry and an ouster that had not actually happened, so the courts invented parties for them: John Doe was the fictitious lessee and Richard Roe the fictitious ejector. The device was abolished in 1852 but the names stayed in the profession's vocabulary and crossed to the United States, where they became the standard way of naming an anonymous party. Roe v. Wade in 1973 is the most famous instance, and it made the surname a byword for anonymity in a country where it was also, at the same moment, a genuine family name and a given name. The given name's own peak, in 1881, is a century earlier and entirely unconnected.
Meaningscholars disagree
Middle English ro, a roe deer
Roe as a surname has at least three sources. The commonest is Middle English ro, a roe deer, a nickname for someone quick or timid. A second is a variant of Rowe, from Middle English row, a row of houses, a topographic name. A third is the Irish surname O Ruaidh, from ruadh, red-haired. All three produce the same modern spelling and the American peak of the given name, 1881, is too early to distinguish them by community.
How the name formed
- ro
- Roe
Related forms: Rowe · O Ruaidh
Pronouncing Roe
ROH
One syllable. Roe, Rowe and Rho are homophones, and roe is also an everyday word for fish eggs.
Nicknames for Roe
Limited
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 191625 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #595reached in 1881
- Change vs 2023
- −42.9%8 in 2025, from 14
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.
Roe in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Rowe in English — spelling variant
- O Ruaidh in Irish — related form
Roes among us
people named Roe are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 213,510 born in 2025 was named Roe
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Roe 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
Roe beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Roe in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three letters and one syllable, about as short as a name can be.
- It is a genuine surname with several documented origins.
- There is no possible mispronunciation.
- It is identical to the word for fish eggs.
- The legal placeholder use is very widely recognized.
- Rowe is the commoner spelling of the surname.
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Roe
Masculine · #8910 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Roes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Roe are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Roe in 2025?
- Roe ranks #8910 among US boy names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Roe?
- About 1 in every 213,510 US boys born in 2025 was named Roe — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Roe with classmates?
- Roe will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Roe
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Davie#8910 · Ned#8910 · Darious#8910 · Alois#8910 · Len#8910 · Barton#8910 · Desmon#8910 · Winfield#8910
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Roe? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Roe and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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