Rod

Where Rod comes from

Rod hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

Along the way
  1. 1910
    First appearance
    #1,421 among boys, 6 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1925
    Rod Steiger born
    American actor
  3. 1938
    Rod Laver born
    Australian tennis player
  4. 1965
    Peak, #344
    494 babies named Rod — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1968
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #496.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Rod Steiger · American actor, 1925–2002
  • Rod Laver · Australian tennis player, born 1938
  • Rod Taylor · Australian actor, 1930–2015
  • Rod Blagojevich · 40th governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009, born 1956
  • Rod Fanni · French footballer, born 1981

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.