A female name. Latinization of Rose (q.v.), which came into use in the 19th C.

A female name. although this name has, from a fairly early date, been identified with the flower-name and latinized as Rosa, it seems actually to be a derivative of hros or ros ‘horse’ (cf. Rosalind, Rosamund). It was introduced into England by the Normans in the form Roese, Rohese (Latin Roesia, Rohesia), which became Royse (latinized as Roysia) and Rose in Middle English (cf. surnames Royce, Royse, Rose). Promptorium Parvulorum gives it as Rose, Latin Rosa. It was rather rare in the 15th-18th C but was revived in the 19th C.

Roesia Curia Regis Rolls 1199-1220. Rohesia, Roheis Curia Regis Rolls 1164. Roysia Feudal Aids 1303. Rosa Feudal Aids 1316, Hundred Rolls 1273, Yorks Poll Tax of West Riding of Yorkshire 1379 1379. Roseia Feudal Aids 1346. Rose Feudal Aids 1316. Royse English Register of Godstow Nunnery, c. 1450 (E.E.T.S. 129-30) 1450. Roos Lincs 1529.

ROSE. Charlotte Yonge maintains that ‘the first use of hrôs among the Teutons was a meaning sometimes fame,’—cf. the hruod in Robert and Romulus, qq. v.—‘sometimes a horse’: this theory is supported by Rosamond, q. v. She notes that Rohais and Rœsia were current as aristocratic f. names among the French in C12-13, and thinks that they should be so derived. Nevertheless, as she freely admits, there was an Italian St. Rosa or Rose, who died ca. 1250, and she herself mentions the Sicilian St. Rosalia, ‘the darling of each heart and eye,’ who died in 1160, and that ‘Rosel and Rosette both occur at Cambrai between 900 and 1200.’ Certainly, the C15-20 Rosa and Rose, whatever their dim-distant origin, are to be referred to the burgeoning and the full-blown rose, the latter so often symbolic and ‘nominal’ of a ruddy-cheeked country wench.

A rose (L. )

Latin (feminine) - Rose, fig. rosy complexion.