ROCHELL

**The Rochell surname** is of French origin, and its earliest roots can be traced to the Latin name Rochus, which was itself associated with the 14th‑century French saint Saint Roch who was renowned for his healing abilities and for providing protection against the plague. The surname is therefore thought to have arisen as a patronymic, identifying those descended from an ancestor named Roch.

At the same time, the form Rochell may also have developed from the French word roche, meaning *rock*. In this sense, the name could have been employed as a nickname for a person who lived near a rocky outcrop or who was considered strong and immovable as a rock. It has additionally been suggested that the name may derive from the appellation of the French river La Rochelle, in the department of Charente‑Maritime, whose own name refers to rugged terrain.

In Britain the surname appears in several variant spellings such as Rockhall, Rockhill, Rochall and Rochell. These forms are most commonly recorded in England and Scotland as locational names taken from places called Rockhill in Shropshire, Worcestershire and Devon, or from Rockhall (now Rockhallhead) in the parish of Mouswald, Dumfriesshire. The place names themselves were likely composed of the Old English word rocc – rock – or of the Germanic personal name Hroc, joined with the second Old English element hyll, giving a sense of a rock on a hill.

The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the family name in Scotland dates back to the late twelfth century. A record of 1170 at the abbey of Kelso, during the reign of King William, the Lion, names a Hugh de Rokele. Later, in 1376 a tenant of the Clan Douglas at Drumcorke is noted as Hugh de Rowkell, and in 1406 a John Rokel petitioned for a benefice from the abbot of Holyrood in Edinburgh. London church registers from the seventeenth century record a marriage of Margery Rockall in 1582 at St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, the marriage of Richard Rockell to Margery Stone in 1588 at Tottenham, and the christening of John Rockhill in 1689 at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate.

In France the name Rochell first appears in the sixteenth century in the region of Bearn (in the Pyrenees) and is believed to have spread across the country throughout the seventeenth century, reaching other European regions such as the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. In the United States the surname arrived primarily with French Huguenot migrants in the nineteenth century, and today it is still found in states such as California, Minnesota, Texas and Louisiana. In contemporary France, Rochell is most frequently located around Paris but is also prominent in the Languedoc region; it is estimated that 7.1 in every 1,000 people in France bear the name, placing it as the 257th most common surname in the country.

Variant spellings of the surname are numerous. In England the form Rothschild is sometimes considered a derivative of Rochell, while in the Netherlands a common spelling is Roos and in Germany it appears as Rossel. Other recorded variants include de Rochel, Rochele, Roussel, Rosset, Ruechel and Rochet. Several unrelated surnames are thought to share the same linguistic root, such as the French Roussell, and the Spanish and Portuguese Rojas and Rosal.

Typical given names associated with the Rochell surname

Male

• Alan
• Andrew
• Barry
• Christopher
• Craig
• David
• George
• John
• Keith
• Mark
• Paul
• Simon

Female

• Annette
• Faye
• Gemma
• Gillian
• Hannah
• Jacqueline
• Joan
• Julie
• Kathleen
• Kelly
• Lauren
• Laurie
• Lilian

Similar and related surnames

Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.

How to communicate the surname Rochell in...

Braille

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Morse

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Surname type: Location or geographical feature

Origin: English

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Religion of origin: Christian

Language of origin: English

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