Roos
A surname with multiple origins, most often tied either to a place-name or to the word for “rose.”
The #6,690 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 61,126 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Roos can have more than one source. In English and Norman records it often looks like a habitational name, from places called Ros or Roos in northern England or Normandy; some writers also connect it with the Welsh place-name element rhos, meaning a moor or heath. In other cases it may be a spelling or variant form of Rose, ultimately linked to the flower-name, and Dutch roos also means “rose.”
History
Medieval records show people styled de Roos in England, especially in Yorkshire and related northern families. Some later British families with Rose, Ross, or Roos spellings were thought to share an early local or Norman background, though the exact line of descent is not always clear. The surname also appears in continental contexts, where similar spellings may have separate origins.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A 14th-century Yorkshire document mentions Johanna domina de Roos, showing the surname in use among the medieval gentry.
From the historical record
“(Celt.) Dweller at a Moor [Wei. rAos] Hugh da Ros.— Pipe-Roll, A.D. 1237-8. Philip de Roos. — Lattc. Assize-Roll, A.D. 1246. These entries relate to Roose, N. Lanes. "Roose, Rouse, or Rhos, a hundred in the”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)