Monroe
Meaning
surname, "mouth of the river Roe"
The story
Monroe is a Scottish surname that traces, a little unexpectedly, to Ireland: it means mouth of the Roe, the river in the north of Ireland the founding family is said to have come from. It carries two very American giants. President James Monroe, whose doctrine shaped a century of foreign policy, and Marilyn Monroe, the screen icon whose single surname became shorthand for glamour itself. That mix gives the name both gravity and sparkle. Chosen now for girls and boys alike and lifted by a wave of celebrity babies, Monroe is brand new as a first name in the United States and reads as current as it has ever been. Smooth, confident and a touch starry, Monroe hands a child a president, a legend and a surname that somehow sounds like the spotlight.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Monroe peaked in the 2020s.
The Monroe deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Monroe truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Monroe fits with your family’s names and surname.
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