Roslyn
Feminine
Roslyn is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 18,647 girls against 10 boys since 1880.
Roslyn sits at the meeting point of two older names: the courtly Rosalind of Shakespeare's As You Like It, and Roslin, the village south of Edinburgh whose fifteenth-century chapel carries the spelling Rosslyn. It has been in continuous American use for generations, quietly and without ever crowding the class list, and it still gets shortened the same two ways it always has — Roz and Rosie.
How old is the name Roslyn?
Roslyn first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Roslyn alive today was born around 1956, making them about 69 years old. About 12,000 people named Roslyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Roslyn most popular?
Roslyn peaked in 1927, reaching #396 nationally. Today it ranks #1427, 1,031 places below that high. See the whole 1927 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Roslindis to Roslyn
The story of Roslyn
The Germanic Rosalind traveled into medieval France and England, where speakers heard rose in the first syllable and treated the name as a flower name — a folk reading that stuck and produced Rosaline, Rosalinda and Rosalie. Shakespeare used both Rosalind and Rosaline, keeping the name in literary circulation for centuries afterward. Meanwhile Scotland had its own Roslin, a village in Midlothian with a famous chapel, and the surname and place spelling Rosslyn passed into use as a given name in the English-speaking world. Roslyn is where the two streams settle into one compact, easily read spelling — and American parents have used it steadily ever since, never in a rush, never quite letting go.
Meaningscholars disagree
Either 'gentle horse' (from the Germanic name Rosalind) or a Scottish place name meaning roughly 'promontory by the pool'
Roslyn reaches English by two roads. As a respelling of Rosalind, it goes back to Germanic elements usually read as hros 'horse' and lind 'soft, gentle' — later reinterpreted in Romance-speaking Europe as though it contained rosa, 'rose', which is why so many of its cousins look floral. As a transfer from the Scottish Roslin or Rosslyn, near Edinburgh, the elements are generally read as a headland or promontory plus a pool or waterfall. Both lines are genuine; neither cancels the other.
How the name formed
- Roslindis
- Rosalind
- Rosaline
- Rosalyn
- Roslyn
Related forms: Rosalind · Rosalinda · Rosalinde · Rosalie · Roselyn · Rosslyn
Pronouncing Roslyn
ROZ-lin
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some families say ROSS-lin, closer to the Scottish place, and some stretch it to three syllables as ROZ-uh-lin, which is really Rosalyn. Any of these is defensible; it helps to pick one and say it consistently from the start.
Nicknames for Roslyn
High
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
- 1891
- Most girls named
- 1956376 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #396reached in 1927
- Change vs 2022
- −20.5%151 in 2025, from 190
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.
Roslyn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Rosalind in English — related form
- Rosalinda in Spanish — related form
- Rosalinde in German — related form
- Rosalie in French — related form
- Roselyn in English — spelling variant
- Rosslyn in Scots — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Washington.
Roslyns among us
people named Roslyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,644 born in 2025 was named Roslyn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Roslyn
- #1427
- Roslyn on the 2025 chart
- #711
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Roslyn went to 151 girls in 2025, but Roslynn, Rozlyn and Rozlynn and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 251, which makes it the 711th most-given girls’ name of the year — 716 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 6,403 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,644 for Roslyn 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 Tressie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Roslyn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tressie climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tressie's path sketches the road Roslyn is walking now.
Roslyn 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 Roslyn is headed
Roslyn should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Roslyn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Roslyn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two long-established short forms, Roz and Rosie, both instantly understood without explanation.
- A spelling most people can read on sight, even if they need to hear which spelling you mean.
- Sits in a large familiar family — Rosalind, Rosalyn, Rosalie — so it is recognizable without being interchangeable.
- A documented record on both sides of the Atlantic, as a literary name and as a Scottish place name.
- The spelling will need repeating for life. Roselyn, Rosalyn, Rozlyn and Roslynn all exist, and hearers default more or less at random. Worth deciding early how you want it spelled out.
- It carries a real generational tilt — Roslyn is still strongly represented among people well into adulthood, so it may read as an inherited name rather than a new one. That cuts both ways depending on what you want.
- Pronunciation splits between ROZ-lin and ROSS-lin, and a child will likely hear both.
- Anyone who knows the Rosalind or Rosalyn spellings may assume Roslyn is a shortening of them rather than a name standing on its own.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Roslyn
Feminine · #1427 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Roslyns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Roslyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Roslyn?
- Roslyn is the most-used spelling in US records — 151 of the 251 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Roslynn, Rozlyn, Rozlynn and Roslin.
- How popular is the name Roslyn in 2025?
- Roslyn ranks #1427 among US girl names in 2025, with 151 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Roslyn?
- About 1 in every 10,644 US girls born in 2025 was named Roslyn — 151 in all.
- Will my child share the name Roslyn with classmates?
- Roslyn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Roslyn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sana#1427 · Khadijah#1427 · Evalyn#1427 · Desiree#1427 · Katerina#1427 · Aracely#1427 · Zarah#1427 · Camden#1427
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Roslyn? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Roslyn and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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