Rodney

Where Rodney comes from

From Old English placename Hrōdanīeġ, Hrōdanīġ (literally “Hroda's island”), from Proto-Germanic *hrōþiz (“fame”) and *awjō (“island”).
— Wiktionary's entry for Rodney
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #505 among boys — 13 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1917
    Rodney Robert Porter born
    English biochemist and Nobel laureate
  3. 1965
    Rodney King born
    African American police brutality victim
  4. 1965
    Peak, #33
    11,086 babies named Rodney — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1971
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #59.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name transferred from the surname.
Namesakes
  • Rodney Robert Porter · English biochemist and Nobel laureate, 1917–1985
  • Rodney King · African American police brutality victim, 1965–2012
  • Rodney Williams · Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda, born 1947
  • Rodney Strasser · Sierra Leonean footballer, born 1990
  • Rodney Mullen · American professional skateboarder, born 1966

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.