Roque
Masculine
Roque is the Spanish form of a saint who is invoked against plague, and his cult explains the name's spread better than any fashion could: Saint Roch was carried across Europe by successive epidemics, and every town that survived one built him a chapel. The Spanish name is ordinary in Mexico, Argentina and the Philippines, and its American peak is 1977.
How old is the name Roque?
Roque first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Roque alive today was born around 1986, making them about 39 years old. About 2,200 people named Roque are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Roque most popular?
Roque peaked in 1977, reaching #1407 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 4,454 places below that high. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Rochus to Roque
The story of Roque
Saint Roch, according to the tradition, was a fourteenth-century nobleman of Montpellier who gave away his property, nursed plague victims in Italy, caught the disease himself and was fed in the woods by a dog. He became one of the principal plague saints of Europe, and the Black Death and its recurrences carried his cult into every Catholic country. Spanish and Portuguese naming took up Roque, Italian took Rocco, and Spanish colonization spread the name through Latin America and the Philippines. American records show it steadily through the twentieth century, tracking Mexican and Filipino migration, with a peak in the 1970s.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Not established. The name is Germanic in form and the most cited proposals connect it to hrok, a word for a crow or rook, or to a root meaning rest. Neither is demonstrated, and the saint's own name may have been a local Occitan form of something else entirely. The Italian Rocco, Spanish Roque and French Roch are all the same name, and all inherit the same uncertainty.
How the name formed
- Rochus
- Roque
Related forms: Roque · Rocco · Roch · Roque
Pronouncing Roque
ROH-keh
Two syllables in Spanish, stress on the first, with the que said as a hard k plus a short e. English speakers frequently produce ROHK, one syllable, treating the final e as silent as it would be in English. The two-syllable version is the Spanish one.
Nicknames for Roque
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
- 1915
- Most boys named
- 199745 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1407reached in 1977
- Change vs 2023
- −31.8%15 in 2025, from 22
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.
Roque in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Roque in Spanish — same name
- Rocco in Italian — related form
- Roch in French — related form
- Roque in Portuguese — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Roques among us
people named Roque are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Roque
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 Hershal test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Roque's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hershal climbed just as high around 1918, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hershal's path sketches the road Roque is walking now.
Roque 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
Roque beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Roque in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, distinctive and fully phonetic in Spanish.
- Rocky is available as an English-language extension that needs no explanation.
- The saint behind it has an unusually vivid and memorable story.
- English speakers silence the final e and lose a syllable.
- The name's own etymology is not established.
- It is close to Roc, Rock and Rocco, which are related but distinct.
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What they receive
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Roque
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Roques are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Roque are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Roque in 2025?
- Roque ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Roque?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Roque — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Roque with classmates?
- Roque will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Roque
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Roque? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Roque and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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