Roche
A surname with French and English roots, usually meaning “dweller by a rock” or referring to someone from a place called Roche.
The #1,895 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 16,301 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Roche comes from French roche, meaning “rock,” and ultimately from Latin rupes, “cliff” or “rock.” In surname use, it often pointed to someone who lived by a rocky place or came from a place named Roche or La Roche. Some early English families also took the name from Norman/French localities, while in Cornwall it was linked to the parish of Roche, historically written as De Rupe.
History
The name appears early in medieval England in forms such as de la Roche and de Rupe, showing its Norman-French and Latin documentary background. In Cornwall, Lower notes a local Roche family seated there from the reign of Richard I, tying the surname to the parish of Roche. The spelling Roach is often treated as an English form or adaptation of Roche.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Lower notes that the Cornish parish of Roche was recorded as De Rupe in 1291, preserving the Latin form of the same rock-name.
From the historical record
“dim. sufF. -e)y, ROCHE '(A.-Fr.-Lat.) Bel. to Roche (France) ; or Dweller at a Rock [Fr. roche, roc^ & rock (Ital. raced); app. f. a deriv. (rupica) of Lat. rupes, a rode] Rochefort”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)