Rolf
The boy's name Rolf has been in the national records since 1912, with 3,103 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 12,008th. About 1,700 Rolfs are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 64.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Rolf
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 3,103
- Estimated living today
- 1,700
- Median age today
- 64
- Peak year
- 1960
- Best rank
- 775th
- Rank in 2025
- 12,008th
- First recorded
- 1912
How old the living Rolfs are
born that year still alive today
Of the 3,103 babies given the name since 1912, about 1,700 are alive — 54 in every hundred. Roughly 40 of them are children and 780 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1961 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Germanic languages
From Old Norse Hrólfr, and from its Old French equivalent, cognates of Rudolph. Brought to England by the Normans, survived in surnames and was revived in the 19th century, partly due to its modern Scandinavian cognate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Rolfs
- Rolf M. Zinkernagel (born 1944)Swiss immunologist
- Rolf Sievert (1896–1966)Swedish medical physicist, professor
- Rolf Nevanlinna (1895–1980)Finnish mathematician (1895–1980) known for his research in complex analysis
- Rolf Harris (1930–2023)Australian entertainer
- Rolf Singer (1906–1994)German mycologist
- Rolf Danneberg (born 1953)German discus thrower
- Rolf Sørensen (born 1965)Danish cyclist, born 1965
- Rolf Løvland (born 1955)Norwegian composer, song lyricist, arranger, and pianist
People named Rolf with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Rolf is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Rolf is most concentrated in Minnesota (11.6×), New York (4.2×), Wisconsin (2.7×), Illinois (2.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1960
The most popular boys’ names the year Rolf peaked:
Rolf elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway boys | Rolf | 11,096 | 16th |
| France boys | Rolf | 315 | 212th |
| Belgium boys | Rolf | 5 | 1,382nd |
| Ireland boys | Rolf | 3 | 305th |
| Scotland boys | Rolf | 3 | 305th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Rolf: rank by region
In 2016, Rolf was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Rolf | 865 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Rolf among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Rolf | 2,471 | 3,180 |
| Finland boys | Rolf | 1,279 | 1,786 |
| the Netherlands girls | Rolf | — | 14 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Rolf lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 206 men called Rolf were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Rolf | 35 | 0.066 | 1,289 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Rolf | 38 | 0.038 | 1,658 |
| Balears, Illes | Rolf | 20 | 0.032 | 1,738 |
| Tarragona | Rolf | 10 | 0.023 | 2,151 |
| Málaga | Rolf | 20 | 0.023 | 1,995 |
| Palmas, Las | Rolf | 13 | 0.022 | 3,074 |
Listed in 6 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 46 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Rolf against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.