Rocky
Meaning
rock, stone (English nickname name); immortalized by Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976)
The story
Rocky is exactly what it sounds like, an English nickname name meaning rock or stone, worn like a badge of toughness. It entered American records early in the twentieth century and picked up noticeably at midcentury, just as Rocky Marciano was retiring as the only heavyweight champion to leave the ring undefeated; the timing lines up, even if nobody can prove it. Then in 1976 Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the film took Best Picture, and the name became permanent shorthand for the underdog who refuses to stay down. The surprise is in the data: Rocky's best decades on the American chart are not the 1970s at all but right now, the 2010s and 2020s, its strongest showing on record. Every generation, it seems, eventually wants a fighter in the family.
The formal names behind Rocky
Rocky is an established short form of this name.
Rocco · Germanic origin · Italian form of an old Germanic name, its root debated: read as 'rest' in one tradition, 'crow' in another
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Rocky peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
86 people · the #45,833 first name in Brazil · median age 36
Among people named Rocky living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Rocky
People given the name Rocky in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1950 to 2009. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Rocky deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Rocky 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 Rocky fits with your family’s names and surname.
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