Roddy
A masculine diminutive of the name Roderick, derived from the Germanic elements "rod" meaning famous and "ric" meaning power or ruler.
Name Census estimates that about 1,817 living Americans carry the first name Roddy. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Roddy today is around 59 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Roddy births was 1960 (86 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Roddy. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Roddy with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
1.8K
~ 1 in 188,638 Americans
Peak year
1960
86 babies that year
Average age
59
years old
2022 SSA rank
#12,023
Tracked since 1914
Census
Roddy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,745 people with the first name Roddy, which placed it at #8,337 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#8,337
National first-name rank
People counted
1.7K
1,745 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Roddy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Roddy is White at 64.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.5%) and Black (13.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Roddy described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Roddy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.5% · 1,125
- Hispanic or Latino13.5% · 236
- Black or African American13.3% · 232
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.8% · 67
- Two or more races3.2% · 55
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.7% · 30
Popularity
Roddy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Roddy from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 566 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Roddy by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Roddy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Roddys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 10 states and territories. Texas, California, Louisiana recorded the most babies named Roddy, while Alabama, Illinois, Pennsylvania recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 49 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Roddy
The name Roddy is a diminutive form of the Scottish name Roderick, which itself comes from the Gaelic name Ruadhrí. Ruadhrí is derived from the elements "ruadh" meaning "red" and "rí" meaning "king". The name gained popularity in Scotland during the Middle Ages.
Roddy is thought to have first appeared as a distinct name in the 16th century, as a pet form of Roderick. It was primarily used in Scotland and parts of northern England. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Roddy is from a historical record dated to 1587, which mentions a "Roddy MacDonald" from the Scottish Highlands.
In the 17th century, a notable bearer of the name Roddy was Roddy MacLeod (c. 1620 - c. 1675), a Scottish soldier and chief of the Clan MacLeod. He played a role in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and is mentioned in several historical accounts from that period.
Another historical figure with the name Roddy was Roddy Macaulay (1718 - 1789), a Scottish Gaelic poet and scholar from the Isle of Lewis. He is known for his collection of Gaelic poetry and his efforts to preserve the Gaelic language and culture.
In the 19th century, Roddy Menzies (1833 - 1897) was a Scottish-born Australian politician and landowner. He served as a member of the Legislative Council of Western Australia and played a significant role in the development of the state's agricultural industry.
One of the most famous bearers of the name Roddy in modern times was Roddy McDowall (1928 - 1998), a British-American actor and director. He had a long and successful career in film and television, appearing in classics such as Lassie Come Home, Planet of the Apes, and Fright Night.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Roddy
People
Roddy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Roddy as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Roddy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Roddy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,817 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Roddy going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 188,638 US residents.
Is Roddy a common name?
We classify Roddy as "Rare". It ranks above 93.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,531 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Roddy most popular?
The single biggest year for Roddy was 1960, when 86 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Roddy is about 59 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Roddy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,745 people with the name Roddy, or 0.58 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,337 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Roddy in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Roddy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Roddy leans strongly male. 1,700 people counted with this name were male (97.6%), compared with 42 female bearers (2.4%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Roddy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Roddy is White at 64.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.5%) and Black (13.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Roddy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Roddy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.5% (1,125 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Roddy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Roddy a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Roddy in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Roddy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Roddy in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Roddy can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Roddy as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.