Roca

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/roka/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Roca is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country. In Bolivia it is the 22nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Hungarian Róka, from róka (“fox”).

rarermore common
  • BOBolivia≈1 in 428(inferred from the name graph)
  • ESSpain1 in 1.8K
  • GTGuatemala≈1 in 2.3K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Roca itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Nepal (inferred from the name graph)

≈42,000 named Roka, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
304 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 428 (inferred from the name graph)

Bolivia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

RocaLatin(measured from records)
ΡοκαGreek(measured from records)

Locally spelled Roka in NP Nepal.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Derivation of Roca: each step is the form the one above it came from.
Roca
  1. HungarianRóka(measured from records)
  2. Hungarian rootróka“fox”(measured from records)

Borrowed from Hungarian Róka, from róka (“fox”).

Sources 1

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Roca 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.

Where Roca is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NP Nepal—≈42,000 est.≈1 in 7271Roka52
ES Spain#12627,4961 in 1.8K27KRoca208
BO Bolivia#22≈27,000 est.≈1 in 428—Roca78
PE Peru#376≈13,000 est.≈1 in 2.5K—Roca81
PH Philippines—≈9,900 est.≈1 in 11K—Roca50
GT Guatemala#92≈7,500 est.≈1 in 2.3K—Roca63
UY Uruguay—1,688as Rocca1 in 2K1.7K—39

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: INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Roca is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Spain, Peru

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Roça, Řoca, Rócá, Röcä

  • French surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Philippines, Spain, United States

    Also written Rocà, Rocá, Rôca

  • Portuguese surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Spain, Peru, Philippines

    Also written Röçä, ̶r̶o̶c̶a, Rocā, Ròçá

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Rocā, Roça

  • Lao surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, Peru, Thailand, Spain

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Roka, โรคา, โรก้า, Roga, โรกา

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, Spain, United States, Philippines

    Also written Roça

56 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Roca is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Galician, spinning distaff (part of a spinning wheel from which fibre is drawn to be spun)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Portuguese, distaff (part of a spinning wheel from which fibre is drawn to be spun)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In pi, second-person singular imperative active of rocati

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Irish, present subjunctive analytic of roc

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Italian, feminine singular of roco

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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)

18001850190019502000Jaume Nunó, b. 1824Joseph Oller, b. 1839Julio Argentino Roca, b. 1843Blas Roca Calderio, b. 1908Juan Hohberg, b. 1926Juan Marsé, b. 1933Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca, b. 1945Joan Roca, b. 1964Salvador Illa, b. 1966Stacey Roca, b. 1978
  • Jaume Nunób. 1824ESnot in their usual nameSpanish author (1824–1908)
  • Joseph Ollerb. 1839FRnot in their usual namefounder of the famous cabaret Moulin Rouge (1839–1922)
  • Julio Argentino Rocab. 1843ARArgentine politician and general, former president of Argentina (1843–1914)
  • Blas Roca Calderiob. 1908CUCuban politician (1908–1987)
  • Juan Hohbergb. 1926ARnot in their usual nameUruguayan footballer (1926–1996)
  • Juan Marséb. 1933ESnot in their usual nameSpanish writer (1933–2020)
  • Alejo Vidal-Quadras Rocab. 1945ESSpanish politician and physicist, former vice president of the European Parliament (1999-2014)
  • Joan Rocab. 1964ESCatalan chef
  • Salvador Illab. 1966ESnot in their usual nameSpanish politician
  • Stacey Rocab. 1978GBEnglish actress

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)

FormalEstimado/a Roca,Dear Roca, (English)
InformalEstimado/a Roca,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 42 sources across 23 countries.

Official registers attesting Roca
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—27K#190
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—27K#190
UY UruguayINE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public)—953—

Reference works 6

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

What does the name Roca mean, and where does it come from?
Borrowed from Hungarian Róka, from róka (“fox”). Recorded by Wiktionary.
What are other forms of the name Roca?
In the etymology graph, Roche is a form of the same name in other languages.
How do you pronounce Roca?
A machine transcription gives /roka/ (IPA) for Spanish.
In which country does Roca have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 42 thousand people named Roka in Nepal, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Roca?
In Spain, the national register counted 27,496 people named Roca, about 1 in 1.8 thousand residents.
How common is Roca compared with other names?
In Bolivia, Roca is the 22nd most common surname of 29,432 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Roca?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/roca

The 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, “Roca” — the 22nd most common surname in Bolivia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Roca parses inside a full name →