Roger

294,726 people in America carry this name — ranked #174 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it RAH jur

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

R AA1 JH ER0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 294,726 2020 Census
  • Rank #174 Common
  • Per 100,000 97.6 about 1 in 1,125 people

The meaning and origin of Roger

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “spear of fame”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Roger through the years

442,082 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1953, with 13,199 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50s 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Roger

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Roger Robert — runs together
  • Roger Richard — runs together
  • Roger Ronald — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Roger has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

Is Roger a boy's or a girl's name?

99.9% men
339 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 82.3%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 5.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 7.0%
  • Two or more races — 2.2%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.1%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.8%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Where the name Roger is most common in the US

In West Virginia the name is given 3.5 times as often as it is across the country.

  • West Virginia ×3.5
  • Kentucky ×2.0
  • Maine ×1.7
  • Vermont ×1.5
  • South Carolina ×1.5

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Teutonic origin