Rooke
surname · Latin script
Meaning: From a medieval nickname for someone thought to resemble a rook, e.g
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈɹʊk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Rooke is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 30K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 31K
- CACanada≈1 in 83K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 250 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 30K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,100 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From a medieval nickname for someone thought to resemble a rook, e.g. in black hair or a harsh voice.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rooke counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 31K | 4.3K | Rooke | 166 |
| AU Australia | ≈840 est. | ≈1 in 30K | — | Rooke | 117 |
| US United States | 833 | 1 in 399K | 892 | Rooke | 250 |
| CA Canada | ≈460 est. | ≈1 in 83K | 1 | Rooke | 106 |
| EG Egypt | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 352K | — | Rooke | 6 |
| PT Portugal | ≈99 est. | ≈1 in 104K | — | Rooke | 7 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈64 est. | ≈1 in 77K | — | Rooke | 31 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Rooke is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Obsolete spelling of rook.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, An English name (from the bird) used as an occasional synonym of Rourke
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Lawrence Rookeb. 1620GBBritish astronomer and mathematician
- George Rookeb. 1650GBRoyal Navy admiral (1650-1709)
- Hayman Rookeb. 1723antiquary who took at interest in trees (1723-1806)
- James Rookeb. 1770IEBritish Army officer
- William Michael Rookeb. 1794IEIrish composer (1794–1847)
- Irene Rookeb. 1878GBBritish actress (1878-1958)
- Ronnie Rookeb. 1911GBEnglish association footballer and manager (1911-1985)
- Leon Rookeb. 1934USCanadian writer
- Pamela Rookeb. 1955GBEnglish model and actress (1955–2022)
- Rodney Rookeb. 1970GBFootballer (born 1970)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 18 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 4.3K | #1,853 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 892 | #28,435 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 839 | #27,128 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 833 | #28,618 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Rooke come from?
- From a medieval nickname for someone thought to resemble a rook, e.g. in black hair or a harsh voice. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Rooke?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɹʊk/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Rooke mean?
- Recorded meaning: From a medieval nickname for someone thought to resemble a rook, e.g.
- What are other forms of the name Rooke?
- In the etymology graph, Rook is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Rooke have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.1 thousand people named Rooke in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rooke.
- How common is the name Rooke?
- In the United States, the national register counted 833 people named Rooke in 2010, about 1 in 399 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Rooke?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/rookeThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Rooke”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.