Roman

The baby name meaning of Roman seems pretty self explanatory—it’s based on the legendary Italian city (named after Romulus, the mythic boy raised by wolves).

The most famous (or infamous) person who bears the name is director Roman Polanski, but it’s also the stage name of a WWE wrestler, Roman Reigns, and has been a celebrity baby name favorite, with several stars, including Cate Blanchett, Francis Ford Coppola, and Holly Robinson Peete choosing it for their sons.

In pop culture, Roman is the name of Kieran Culkin’s character in Succession, a soap opera favorite on Days of Our Lives—and a series of villains in the Scream franchise, Get Out, and DC Comics.

There are several other names with that “Rom” base, including Romilly, Romy, and Romeo. You might also be interested in other city name picks—London, Paris, Brooklyn, Denver, Austin, Adelaide, Florence, Geneva, Rio, Memphis, Phoenix, Sydney, Savannah, and Vienna are just a few of the place name picks.

Roman hasn’t left the top 1000 baby names since 1882, and it’s been on a slow and steady rise since 1982. It’s currently well into the top 100 baby names for boys in the U.S.

Roman in quotes:

“The only people for me are the mad ones: the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles.” —Jack Kerouac

“Every failure made me more confident. Because I wanted even more to achieve as revenge, to show that I could.” —Roman Polanski