Rose
A feminine name of Latin origin meaning "beautiful flower".
Name Census estimates that about 174,587 living Americans carry the first name Rose. It sits at #115 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Rose today is around 55 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Rose births was 1917 (9,821 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Rose. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Rose with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Rose is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 2,118 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
175K
~ 1 in 1,963 Americans
Peak year
1917
9,821 babies that year
Average age
55
years old
2023 SSA rank
#115
Tracked since 1880
Census
Rose in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 196,310 people with the first name Rose, which placed it at #283 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#283
National first-name rank
People counted
196K
196,310 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
65.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Rose
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rose is White at 64.1%. The next largest groups are Black (14.9%) and Hispanic (13.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Rose described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Rose at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.1% · 125,828
- Black or African American14.9% · 29,214
- Hispanic or Latino13.2% · 25,915
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.0% · 7,781
- Two or more races2.7% · 5,234
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 2,338
Gender
Gender distribution for Rose
Out of the 500,276 babies given the name Rose since 1880, 99.6% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Rose as a male name
- Ranked #10,580 in 2023
- 7 male births in 2023
- Peak: 1930 (61 births)
Rose as a female name
- Ranked #115 in 2024
- 2,376 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1917 (9,783 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Rose appears almost entirely female. Of the 196,309 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Rose: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Rose from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 85,665 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Rose 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 Rose during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 58 | 11,064 | 11,122 |
| 1890s | 94 | 21,134 | 21,228 |
| 1900s | 157 | 28,106 | 28,263 |
| 1910s | 275 | 74,690 | 74,965 |
| 1920s | 360 | 85,305 | 85,665 |
| 1930s | 409 | 59,111 | 59,520 |
| 1940s | 228 | 51,643 | 51,871 |
| 1950s | 203 | 66,688 | 66,891 |
| 1960s | 147 | 31,858 | 32,005 |
| 1970s | 65 | 11,387 | 11,452 |
| 1980s | 77 | 9,834 | 9,911 |
| 1990s | 20 | 8,487 | 8,507 |
| 2000s | 0 | 9,566 | 9,566 |
| 2010s | 11 | 17,511 | 17,522 |
| 2020s | 14 | 11,774 | 11,788 |
Geography
Where Roses live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, California recorded the most babies named Rose, while Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 8,557 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Rose
The name Rose has its origins in the Latin word "rosa", which means the flower rose. The Latin term derived from the ancient Greek word "rhodon", referring to the same flower. The name's linguistic roots can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European language family, with the reconstructed root word "wrdho" meaning "twig" or "branch".
In ancient Rome, the rose was associated with the goddess Venus, representing love, beauty, and desire. The flower held symbolic significance in various cultures and religions throughout history, often symbolizing purity, passion, and secrecy. The name Rose gained popularity as a given name during the Middle Ages, particularly in Christian societies.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Rose can be found in the 12th century, when Rose de Vitry, a French mystic and Benedictine nun, lived from around 1166 to 1235. In the 13th century, Saint Rose of Viterbo, an Italian mystic and preacher, was born in 1235 and canonized in 1457.
During the Renaissance period, the name Rose gained further prominence. Rose Blanche, a French heroine during the Hundred Years' War, was celebrated for her acts of bravery in the 15th century. Later, Rose O'Neale Greenhow, an American Confederate spy during the American Civil War, was born in 1814 and played a significant role in the conflict.
In the 20th century, notable figures with the name Rose include Rose Kennedy (1890-1995), the matriarch of the Kennedy political dynasty, and Rose Parks (1913-2005), the iconic American civil rights activist who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1955, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Other famous individuals named Rose throughout history include Rose Fitzgerald (1890-1995), an American philanthropist and mother of President John F. Kennedy; Rose Macaulay (1881-1958), an English writer and novelist; and Rose Valland (1898-1980), a French art historian and member of the French Resistance during World War II.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Rose
People
Rose + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Rose 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
Rose: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Rose?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 174,587 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Rose 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 1,963 US residents.
Is Rose a common name?
We classify Rose as "Common". It ranks above 99.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 500,276 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Rose most popular?
The single biggest year for Rose was 1917, when 9,821 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Rose is about 55 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Rose in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 196,310 people with the name Rose, or 65.00 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #283 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Rose in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Rose?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Rose appears almost entirely female. Of the 196,309 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Rose?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rose is White at 64.1%. The next largest groups are Black (14.9%) and Hispanic (13.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Rose most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Rose in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.1% (125,828 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Rose in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Rose a female name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Rose in the SSA data are female. 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.
Is Rose still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Rose in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Rose can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people share the name Rose?
Want to know how many people have the name Rose? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.