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Re: Feminine variants of Rocco
in reply to a message by Eilis
Some people seem to see Rochelle as deriving from the same root word hrok:
http://www.geocities.com/edgarbook/names/r/rochelle.htmlBy the way, one of the German standard reference works about given names, from the "Duden Verlag", gives another etymology for Rocco:
"Italian Rocco, from German Rochus, from Old High German Roho, from the Old High German word 'rohon' 'to roar, to shout' " (as for example in shouting war cries during battle).Unfortunately that reference work does not list Rochelle to confirm (or contradict) other sources that see the name as having the same origin...

Rene     www.AboutNames.ch
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Interesting!Thank you for sharing that. Given that the write-up for Rocco on this site calls it the "Italian form of a Germanic name," I was curious about how much further the "Germanic name" origin could be followed. Rochus didn't yield any additional information so I'm very happy that you could help fill in that informational gap for me. :-) I see from your signature's link, www.aboutnames.ch, that Rocco is" from the Old High German name 'Roho' which was a short form of names like 'Rochbert' that are all but forgotten today." Do you know anything about Rochbert? That's a completely new name to me.
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I found the reference to the name 'Rochbert' in the 'Rocco' entry of the Duden book that I mentioned. Before that I did't know the name myself.Rochbert would be one of the many many German/Germanic two-element names, with 'rohon' as the first element and 'beraht' (bright) as the second element. There are many -bert names like Robert or Albert still in use today, and there must be a large number of such names that fell out of favor a long time ago already, like this Rochbert.
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