Rolla

Where Rolla comes from

Rolla 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.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1875
    Rolla Kent Beattie born
    American botanist
  2. 1880
    Rolla Coral McMillen born
    American politician
  3. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #403 among boys — 18 babies in the first year on record.
  4. 1891
    Peak, #364
    22 babies named Rolla — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1893
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #705.
  6. 1955
    Mostly boys from here
    Until now more girls than boys got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary

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

Namesakes
  • Rolla Kent Beattie · American botanist, 1875–1960
  • Rolla Coral McMillen · American politician, 1880–1961
  • Rolla M. Tryon Jr. · American botanist, 1916–2001
  • Rolla Norman · French actor, 1889–1971
  • Rolla C. Carpenter · American engineer, 1852–1919

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.