Roland

18,139 people in the United States were counted with the surname Roland in the 2020 census, making it the 1,941st most common in the country. That is about one person in 16,500.

By the numbers

People: 18,139
Rank: 1,941st
How common: 1 in 16,500
Per 100,000: 6.1

Where the name comes from

From Old French, from Frankish *Hrōþiland. Name of a paladin of Charlemagne in medieval French romance.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Roland described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 67.8%
Black, not Hispanic 22.0%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Hispanic or Latino 4.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Roland

Manon Roland (1754–1793)French revolutionary
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière (1734–1793)French politician
Gilbert Roland (1905–1994)American film actor
Ruth Roland (1892–1937)American actress
Adriaan Roland Holst (1888–1976)Dutch writer
Thierry Roland (1937–2012)French sports journalist

People named Roland with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Roland

Also a first name

Roland has been given to 101,191 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1924. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.