Roland
Meaning
hruod "fame" + lant "land", possibly originally nand "brave"; the legendary knight who died heroically at Roncevaux in the Song of Roland
The story
Roland is built from the Old German hruod, "fame", and lant, "land", though Behind the Name keeps the alternative that the second element began as nand, "brave". The name's great bearer is the 8th-century commander under Charlemagne, killed by the Basques at Roncevaux and remembered in the Song of Roland. The American record has never been without it: about 880 boys in the 1890s, about 16,900 in the 1920s, a long descent to about 2,700 in the 2000s, then a lift to about 4,300 in the 2010s and about 2,600 so far this decade. Brazil keeps a small older line, median age 60. Fame and land, or fame and courage, either way a thousand-year-old war story that fourteen straight American decades have kept on the roll.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Roland peaked in the 1910s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
589 people · the #11,958 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 333,333 · median age 60
Among people named Roland living in Brazil at the 2022 census, roughly as many were born in the 1950s as in the 1960s, more than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Roland deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Roland 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 Roland fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Does Roland fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Roland to your family’s tree →