Humanverse

Rochelle vs Rockwell

American parents have registered 47,395 Rochelles since 1880, against 1,801 Rockwells. But in 2025 it was Rockwell that was commoner, 80 babies to 30.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rochelle against Rockwell, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rochelle Rockwell

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 125 years in which either name was published, Rochelle for 112 years and Rockwell for 13 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Rochelle Rockwell
Total US births 47,3951,801
Most in one year 1,284110
Babies in 2025 3080
Estimated living today 40,0001,600
Median age today 549
Peak year 19692017
Best rank 236th girls1,510th boys
Rank in 2025 4,546th1,932nd
First recorded 19001914
Girls / boys 46,994 / 4010 / 1,801

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Rochelles alive today are over 54; half the Rockwells are over 9. That is 45 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Rochelle Rockwell
England and Wales 9919

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Rochelle and Rockwell.