Rosetta
A feminine name of Latin origin meaning "little rose".
Name Census estimates that about 10,555 living Americans carry the first name Rosetta. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Rosetta today is around 63 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Rosetta births was 1948 (578 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Rosetta. 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 Rosetta with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
11K
~ 1 in 32,473 Americans
Peak year
1948
578 babies that year
Average age
63
years old
1937 SSA rank
#2,641
Tracked since 1880
Census
Rosetta in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 11,740 people with the first name Rosetta, which placed it at #2,228 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
#2,228
National first-name rank
People counted
12K
11,740 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
3.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
53.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Rosetta
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rosetta is Black at 53.5%. The next largest groups are White (39.3%) and Two or More Races (3.1%). 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 Rosetta 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 Rosetta at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American53.5% · 6,283
- White39.3% · 4,608
- Two or more races3.1% · 364
- Hispanic or Latino2.3% · 265
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 127
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 93
Gender
Gender distribution for Rosetta
Out of the 28,154 babies given the name Rosetta since 1880, 99.8% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Rosetta as a male name
- Ranked #2,641 in 1937
- 9 male births in 1937
- Peak: 1937 (9 births)
Rosetta as a female name
- Ranked #3,429 in 2024
- 46 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1948 (578 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Rosetta appears almost entirely female. Of the 11,741 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Rosetta: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Rosetta from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 4,800 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1940s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Rosetta 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 Rosetta during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Rosettas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 38 states and territories. Alabama, Illinois, Georgia recorded the most babies named Rosetta, while Maine, Delaware, South Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 578 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Rosetta
The name Rosetta originates from the Italian language and is a diminutive form of the name Rosa, meaning "rose" in Italian. Its origins can be traced back to the 13th century when it was first used in Italy. The name is believed to have been derived from the Latin word "rosa," which in turn came from the Greek word "rhodon," meaning "rose."
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Rosetta appears in Dante Alighieri's epic poem, "The Divine Comedy," written in the early 14th century. In the poem, Dante mentions a character named Rosetta, which suggests that the name was already in use during that time period.
Historically, the name Rosetta has been associated with several notable figures. One of the most famous is Rosetta Stone, an Egyptian hieroglyphic stele discovered in 1799 near the town of Rosetta (now Rashid) in the Nile Delta region of Egypt. The stone, which dates back to 196 BC, provided the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, and its discovery is considered a significant milestone in the study of Egyptology.
Another notable figure with the name Rosetta is Rosetta Tharpe, an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who was a pioneer of rock and roll music. Born in 1915 and often referred to as "The Godmother of Rock and Roll," Tharpe was a influential figure in the development of early rock and roll music.
In the field of literature, Rosetta Loy was an Italian novelist and essayist who was born in 1931 and passed away in 2022. Her works explored themes of identity, memory, and the intersection of personal and historical narratives.
Rosetta Reitz, born in 1923 and died in 2008, was a German-American journalist and author who wrote extensively about her experiences during World War II and the Holocaust. Her memoir, "The Upstairs Room," published in 1972, recounts her family's efforts to hide from the Nazis in a secret room above a factory in the Netherlands.
Lastly, Rosetta Gagliardi, born in 1892 and died in 1971, was an Italian contralto opera singer who performed in many of the major opera houses around the world during the early 20th century. She was particularly renowned for her interpretations of roles in operas by composers such as Verdi and Puccini.
People
Rosetta + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Rosetta 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
Rosetta: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Rosetta?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10,555 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Rosetta 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 32,473 US residents.
Is Rosetta a common name?
We classify Rosetta as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 28,154 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Rosetta most popular?
The single biggest year for Rosetta was 1948, when 578 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Rosetta is about 63 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Rosetta in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 11,740 people with the name Rosetta, or 3.89 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,228 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 Rosetta 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 Rosetta?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Rosetta appears almost entirely female. Of the 11,741 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Rosetta?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rosetta is Black at 53.5%. The next largest groups are White (39.3%) and Two or More Races (3.1%). 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 Rosetta most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Rosetta in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.5% (6,283 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 Rosetta in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Rosetta a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Rosetta in the SSA data are female. 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 Rosetta still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Rosetta 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 Rosetta 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 are named Rosetta?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.