Spanish names that start with ‘R’ include choices for boys like Rodrigo, Ronaldo, and Ricardo, alongside options for girls which include Rosalía, Rita, and Raquel.
Some of these female names have equivalent male names (see examples in the table below).
| female name | male name |
|---|---|
| Ricarda | Ricardo |
| Roberta | Roberto |
| Raimunda | Raimundo |
| Rafaela | Rafael |
| Renata | Renato |
| Ramona | Ramón |
| Ramira | Ramiro |
Roses, with their delicate fragrance, are a special flower that has inspired girl names in many languages, including Spanish.
Many Spanish girl names that begin with ‘R’ come from “rosa,” the Latin word for the rose flower. These include names like Rosa, Rosalía, Rosalina, and Rosalva.
But that is not all. There are also names like Rosalba, Rosario, Rosaura, and Rosita.
The Spanish name Rosa corresponds to the English name Rose. But the form Rosa is also used in the U.S. (the civil rights activist Rosa Parks, for example)
Rosita is a diminutive form the name Rosa. It has become a name in its own right, and in some Spanish-speaking countries, it is more common than Rosa.
Rosalía is a Spanish name that corresponds to the English name Rosalie.
Rosalba is a name that is often interpreted as meaning “white rose.” It combines the names Rosa and Alba (In Spanish, “alba” is a poetic term that means “white”; the more common adjective is “blanca,” or “blanco” in the masculine form).
In Spanish, the word “alba” also means “dawn.” So the name Rosalba could also mean “rose of dawn.”
Rosalva is likely a variant of the name Rosalba; it has a similar pronunciation because, in Spanish, the letter ‘v’ is pronounced the same as the letter ‘b,’ a phenomenon that linguists call betacism.
Rosario is a Spanish female name that ends in ‘o’ (which makes it an exception to the common pattern of Spanish female names ending in ‘a’).
This name arose as a shortened form of “María del Rosario.” The Spanish word “rosario” translates to “rosary,” a term that refers to prayer beads and rose gardens.
Rosaura is a name that may have arisen as a combination of the Latin word “rosa” and the Latin adjective “aurea,” the feminine form of “aureus” (which means “golden”). In that case, the name Rosaura would mean “golden rose.” Note that in Latin, the word “aura” means “air” or “breeze.”
A character named Rosaura appears in the play titled “Life Is a Dream” by 17th-century Spanish author Pedro Calderón de la Barca.
Rita is a name that arose as a shortened form of Margarita, the Spanish form of Margaret, which comes from an Ancient Greek word that means “pearl.”
Rocío is another exception to the pattern of Spanish female names often ending in ‘a’ while their male counterparts frequently end in ‘o.’ This is a female name that is a shortened form of “María del Rocío” (the word “rocío” in Spanish means “dew”).
Raquel is the Spanish version of the name Rachel that we use in English. The spelling difference mirrors that seen in Spanish vocabulary words, like “máquina” (machine), “química” (chemistry), and “esquema” (scheme).
The name Remedios is a shortened form of “María de los Remedios” (the Spanish word “remedios” means “remedies”)
Spanish is a language that evolved from Latin, and yet many Spanish male names that start with ‘R’ originate from Germanic languages rather than Latin.
Examples include Ronaldo (the Spanish version of the name Ronald), Roberto, Ricardo (the Spanish version of Richard), Rodrigo, and Reinaldo.
Despite their Germanic origins, these Spanish names have spelling features (such as the ending in ‘o’) that make them distinctively Spanish (or Italian, because some of them are the same in Spanish and Italian).
Some Spanish names that begin with ‘R’ do come from Latin, for example, Román, Renato, and Rómulo. And some, like Rafael and Rubén, come from Hebrew.
As you can see in the following table, some Spanish boy names that start with ‘R’ are identical to the corresponding Italian names. In other cases, there are small spelling differences between the Spanish version and the Italian version:
| Spanish Name | Italian Name |
|---|---|
| Roberto | Roberto |
| Ricardo | Riccardo |
| Román | Romano |
| Raúl | Raul |
| Rafael | Raffaele |
| Raymundo | Raimondo |
| Renato | Renato |
| Rodolfo | Rodolfo |
The Spanish first names Rodrigo and Ramiro are the origin of the Spanish last names Rodríguez and Ramírez.
In Spanish, patronymic surnames are often formed using the suffix “-ez,” like how the suffix “-son” is used in English (Johnson from John)
| Name | Occupation |
|---|---|
| Rafael Nadal | Spanish tennis player |
| Ricardo Güiraldes | novelist and poet from Argentina who wrote the novel Don Segundo Sombra |
| Ricardo Mollo | musician from Argentina |
| Roberto Bolaño | Chilean novelist |
| Rómulo Betancourt | former President of Venezuela |
| Rufino Tamayo | Mexican painter |
| Raúl Ruiz | Chilean filmmaker who moved to France and made many films, some of them starring well-known French actresses like Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert |
| Rocío Dúrcal | Spanish singer and actress |
| Rosario Dawson | American actress |
| Raquel Welch | American actress |
| Rosana Arbelo | Spanish singer and songwriter |
| Renata Notni | Mexican actress and model |
| Rosario Castellanos | Mexican poet and author |
| Rosita Quintana | Argentine-Mexican actress and singer |