Rolando
Of Germanic origin, referring to someone who is famous or renowned.
Name Census estimates that about 22,517 living Americans carry the first name Rolando. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Rolando today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Rolando births was 1994 (479 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Rolando. 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 Rolando with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Rolando is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 78 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
23K
~ 1 in 15,222 Americans
Peak year
1994
479 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,271
Tracked since 1916
Census
Rolando in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 39,803 people with the first name Rolando, which placed it at #1,053 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
#1,053
National first-name rank
People counted
40K
39,803 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
13.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
83.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Rolando
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rolando is Hispanic at 83.8%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (11.3%) and Black (2.3%). 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 Rolando 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 Rolando at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino83.8% · 33,373
- Asian and Pacific Islander11.3% · 4,514
- Black or African American2.3% · 898
- White2.0% · 810
- Two or more races0.3% · 124
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 84
Gender
Gender distribution for Rolando
Out of the 24,380 babies given the name Rolando since 1880, 99.7% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Rolando as a male name
- Ranked #1,271 in 2024
- 155 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1994 (473 births)
Rolando as a female name
- Ranked #15,218 in 1995
- 5 female births in 1995
- Peak: 1980 (7 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Rolando appears almost entirely male. Of the 39,805 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Rolando: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Rolando from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 4,252 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Rolando 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 Rolando during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Rolandos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 34 states and territories. Texas, California, New York recorded the most babies named Rolando, while South Carolina, Mississippi, Iowa recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 614 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Rolando
The name Rolando is of Italian origin, derived from the Old Frankish name "Rowolando" or "Rothlando." It is a compound name formed from the Germanic elements "hruod" meaning "fame" and "land" meaning "land" or "territory." The name essentially translates to "famous throughout the land" or "celebrated over the territory."
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Rolando can be traced back to the 8th century epic poem "The Song of Roland." This literary masterpiece, written in Old French, tells the story of a Frankish military leader named Roland who served under Charlemagne. The poem depicts Roland's bravery and heroic death during the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 AD, where he fought against the Basque forces.
The name Rolando gained widespread popularity across Europe during the Middle Ages, particularly in Italy and Spain. In Italy, it was famously borne by Rolando da Piazzola (1196-1262), a renowned Italian jurist and professor of law who taught at the University of Bologna. Another notable Italian figure with this name was Rolando Bandinelli (1087-1159), who became Pope Alexander III and played a significant role in the conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.
In Spain, the name Rolando is often associated with the legendary figure of El Cid, also known as Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1043-1099). El Cid was a Castilian nobleman and skilled military leader who played a crucial role in the Reconquista, the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors.
During the Renaissance period, the name Rolando was borne by several notable figures, including the Italian painter Rolando Fiardo (c. 1535-1578) and the Spanish poet and playwright Lope de Vega (1562-1635), whose full name was Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio.
In more recent history, the name Rolando has been carried by individuals such as Rolando Masferrer (1909-1995), a Cuban writer and journalist, and Rolando Blackburn (1941-2022), a Panamanian boxer who won a gold medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics.
People
Rolando + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Rolando 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
Rolando: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Rolando?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 22,517 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Rolando 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 15,222 US residents.
Is Rolando a common name?
We classify Rolando as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 24,380 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Rolando most popular?
The single biggest year for Rolando was 1994, when 479 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Rolando is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Rolando in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 39,803 people with the name Rolando, or 13.18 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,053 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 Rolando 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 Rolando?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Rolando appears almost entirely male. Of the 39,805 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Rolando?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rolando is Hispanic at 83.8%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (11.3%) and Black (2.3%). 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 Rolando most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Rolando in the 2020 Census, accounting for 83.8% (33,373 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 Rolando in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Rolando a male name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Rolando 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 Rolando still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Rolando 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 Rolando 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 common is the name Rolando?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Rolando on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.