Roger
- Pronunciation
- [Ro-ger]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Renowned Spearman. Rogelio: (Spanish) Renowned Spearman.
- Origin
- German
About the Name Roger
Roger is a name of Old High German origin built from hrōd ("fame, renown") and gēr ("spear"), yielding "renowned spearman" — the same martial-prestige formula that generated Rodger, Rudger, and the Spanish Rogelio. The Normans brought it to England, where it flourished throughout the medieval period before a mid-twentieth-century revival made it one of the most common men's names in the postwar United States and Britain.
Four notable bearers define the name across sport, film, journalism, and medicine. Roger Moore, born 1927, was an English actor whose seven-film tenure as James Bond — the longest single-actor run in the franchise — made him one of the defining figures of late-20th-century international cinema. Roger Ebert, born June 18, 1942, in Urbana, Illinois, was an American film critic and journalist, the longtime film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Roger Federer, born August 8, 1981, in Basel, Switzerland, is a Swiss former professional tennis player widely regarded as one of the greatest in the sport's history. Sir Roger Bannister (23 March 1929 – 3 March 2018) was a British neurologist and middle-distance runner who on 6 May 1954 became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, with a time of 3:59.4.
Roger first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1921 and peaked at #22 in 1945. Its longevity is striking: Roger remained in the top-1000 through 2024, where it ranked #750 — over 100 years of continuous chart presence. Recorded variants include Dodge, Hodge, and Rogers.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Roger
US Popularity History (1921–2025)
Annual US births named Roger by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1953 with 13,171 boys named Roger (boy rank #31 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #834 for boys (297 US births). That's 803 places below its 1953 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Roger Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Roger the strongest states are West Virginia, Nevada, Kentucky.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Virginia | #377 | 15 |
| 2 | Nevada | #508 | 19 |
| 3 | Kentucky | #596 | 44 |
| 4 | Virginia | #605 | 98 |
| 5 | Oregon | #616 | 17 |
| 6 | California | #617 | 446 |
| 7 | Maryland | #618 | 61 |
| 8 | Texas | #635 | 410 |
| 9 | Florida | #637 | 222 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #653 | 68 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arizona | #814 | 49 |
| 2 | Pennsylvania | #809 | 54 |
| 3 | Illinois | #794 | 47 |
| 4 | Georgia | #793 | 85 |
| 5 | Indiana | #771 | 55 |
| 6 | Ohio | #765 | 94 |
| 7 | Oklahoma | #749 | 16 |
| 8 | Colorado | #746 | 42 |
| 9 | New York | #742 | 191 |
| 10 | Washington | #738 | 54 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Roger in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Roger
4 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Roger.
- Roger Bannister is an English doctor, academic and a former athlete.
- Roger Ebert — Journalist (1942)
- Roger Federer — Tennis Player (1981)
- Roger Moore — Movie Actor (1927)
Looking for names like Roger?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Roger to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Roger against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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