Rodderick
A masculine name of Germanic origin meaning "famous ruler".
Name Census estimates that about 225 living Americans carry the first name Rodderick. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Rodderick today is around 39 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Rodderick births was 1992 (13 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Rodderick. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
225
~ 1 in 1,523,353 Americans
Peak year
1992
13 babies that year
Average age
39
years old
2018 SSA rank
#13,688
Tracked since 1964
Popularity
Rodderick: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Rodderick from the 1960s through to the 2010s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 67 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1990s peak, Rodderick remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Rodderick by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Rodderick during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Rodderick
Rodderick is a masculine given name of Germanic origin, derived from the elements "rod" meaning "fame" and "ric" meaning "power" or "ruler". Its roots can be traced back to the 5th century AD and the migration of Germanic tribes across Europe.
The name Rodderick first appeared in various forms, such as Roderic, Roderick, and Rodric, in ancient Anglo-Saxon records and chronicles. It gained popularity among the Frankish nobility during the Merovingian dynasty (5th to 8th centuries) and was later adopted by the Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula.
One of the earliest known historical figures bearing this name was Roderic, the last Visigothic King of Hispania (modern-day Spain and Portugal), who ruled from 710 to 711 AD. His reign ended with the Moorish conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, an event that marked the beginning of the Reconquista period.
In the 9th century, the name appeared in the Carolingian Empire, where Roderic the Grammarian, a Frankish scholar and abbot of Auxerre, made significant contributions to the study of Latin grammar and literature.
During the Middle Ages, the name Rodderick was prevalent among the nobility and ruling classes of various European kingdoms. Notable examples include Roderick Manfred, the last King of Sicily from the House of Hohenstaufen, who reigned from 1254 to 1266, and Roderick Macdonald, the 8th Earl of Ross in Scotland, who lived in the late 14th century.
In the 16th century, the Spanish explorer and conquistador Roderick de Bastidas led several expeditions to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America, establishing settlements and paving the way for further Spanish colonization.
Another historical figure with this name was Roderick Murchison, a Scottish geologist and one of the founders of the Geological Society of London, who lived from 1792 to 1871 and made significant contributions to the study of geology and stratigraphy.
People
Rodderick + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Rodderick as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Rodderick: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Rodderick?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 225 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Rodderick going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,523,353 US residents.
Is Rodderick a common name?
We classify Rodderick as "Very Rare". It ranks above 75.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 237 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Rodderick most popular?
The single biggest year for Rodderick was 1992, when 13 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Rodderick is about 39 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Rodderick a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Rodderick in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.