Rolland has been in Scottish print since 1575 and has twice found its way into somebody else's literature. It reached Britain from a medieval song about a knight dying in a Pyrenean pass, and it re-entered Scottish letters when readers took an Edinburgh advocate named Adam Rolland to be the model for a character in Walter Scott's Guy Mannering.
Between those appearances it was an ordinary Lowland surname carried by a few hundred people. The literature helps mainly because it pulls Rolland apart from the two names it is endlessly mistaken for.
Where Does the Name Rolland Come From?
From the personal name Roland, which the Oxford-backed dictionary of family names gives as the parent of the French, Breton, Scottish and English surname alike. Rolland is the doubled-consonant spelling, dominant in France and especially in Brittany.
The name itself is Frankish: ancient Germanic Hrōdland, from hrōd, glory or fame, joined to land. "Famous land" is the usual gloss, though some scholars read the second element as nand, brave. Either way the fame came first.
What made it travel was a poem. The historical Roland served in Charlemagne's army around 778, and the Chanson de Roland turned him into medieval Europe's model of the loyal knight. The Normans brought the name into Britain, as our tour of the castles Norman families built in Scotland shows.
Is Rolland the Same Name as Rowland?
At the root, yes, and pretending otherwise will cost you records. Rowland comes from the Middle English and Old French Rollant or Roulent, the same Germanic Hrōdland. The difference is a spelling tradition rather than a bloodline: Rowland settled in England, Rolland in France and, mostly, in Scotland. Search both, and add plain Roland, which turns up freely whenever a Scottish clerk saw no reason to double the letter.
Is Rolland Connected to Clan Rollo?
No. Rollo is a different name, from a different language, belonging to a different family.
Rollo derives from Old Norse Rolfr, Latinized as Rollo, the Viking chieftain who became the first ruler of Normandy. The Scottish family appears in a charter of 1141 granted by Robert de Brus; in 1380 John Rollock took a royal charter for Duncrub in Perthshire, and Charles II created Sir Andrew Rollo Lord Rollo of Duncrub in January 1651.
The connected spellings recorded for that family are Rollock, Rolloch, MacRolloch and Rolle. Rolland is not among them. A Perthshire Rollo and a Fife Rolland share four letters and nothing else.
Who Was Adam Rolland of Gask?
The second Adam Rolland to hold Gask, born 1734, admitted advocate in 1758, and by reputation the leading feudal lawyer of his generation. He retired around 1800, died on 18 August 1819 at 15 Queen Street, and lies in St Cuthbert's churchyard.
He helped found the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an institution central to our account of the Scottish Enlightenment. He left some £13,000 to charity, including £1,000 for a free school for poor children in Dunfermline, where Andrew Carnegie was later educated. Raeburn painted him around 1800, and the portrait hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.
The literary claim needs care. Guy Mannering, published in 1815 as the second Waverley novel, features Paulus Pleydell, a sharp and clubbable Edinburgh advocate who untangles the hero's inheritance. Scott named no model. Readers of the day supplied one, and later accounts repeated it, so treat it as a strong tradition rather than a documented fact. Our history of the Scott family in the Borders covers the novelist's own name.
Which Other Rollands Are on Record?
Two are worth knowing. John Rolland, who flourished around 1560 and appears to have been a priest of the diocese of Glasgow, was in Dalkeith by 1555. His Court of Venus was printed in 1575 and his verse Seven Sages in 1578, the latter reprinted repeatedly in the following century. C. S. Lewis called him a very minor poet with genuine allegorical power.
Douglas Rolland, born at Kilconquhar in Fife on 4 January 1861, was a stonemason in his early teens before turning professional golfer. He finished runner-up in the Open twice, at Prestwick in 1884 and Royal St George's in 1894, and died in August 1914. The East Neuk of Fife produced much of early professional golf.
Where in Scotland Do the Rollands Belong?
The 1901 census counted 303 Rollands, ranked 1,671st: uncommon, Lowland, clustering east around Fife, Dalkeith and Edinburgh.
Older surname compilations attach the family to an estate called Disblair in Aberdeenshire. That link is repeated far more often than it is sourced, and the reference works available online will not confirm it; treat it as a lead to test against charters and sasines. Rolland is a personal-name surname, so it has no chief and no place on the sept lists in our A to Z of clan-associated names.
How Should a Rolland Line Be Traced?
- Search Rolland, Roland and Rowland together, adding Rollan and Rolan for early entries.
- Exclude Rollo, Rollock and Rolloch unless charter evidence links your family to Duncrub.
- Work Fife, Midlothian and Edinburgh first. That is where the recorded Rollands are.
- Watch for French returns. Rolland is common in France, so a Rolland appearing in a Scottish city may be an immigrant rather than a native line.
- Build back from statutory records on ScotlandsPeople before attempting the old parish registers.
Own a Piece of Rolland Heritage
A name that has stayed in print since the sixteenth century deserves to sit somewhere visible rather than folded into a research file. The Rolland pieces are a garden flag, a mug and a silver-framed keepsake ornament, each showing the family crest against a tartan ground. Because no sett was ever recorded for Rolland, that ground honors the surname by design rather than by inheritance. Our guide to wearing tartan explains where the real customs begin.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Rolland Name
What does Rolland mean?
It is a form of Roland, from Germanic Hrōdland, joining hrōd, glory, to land. The Chanson de Roland spread it across Europe.
Is Rolland the same as Rollo?
No. Rollo comes from Old Norse Rolfr and belongs to the Perthshire family of Duncrub, raised to Lord Rollo in 1651. Rolland is a separate Frankish name and appears nowhere among the Rollo spellings.
Was Adam Rolland really Scott's Pleydell?
He is traditionally identified as the model for Paulus Pleydell in Guy Mannering, but Scott named no original. The 1901 census recorded 303 Rollands in Scotland, ranked 1,671st.
A knight's name, a makar's name and a lawyer's name, all carried on the same seven letters: look through the Rolland designs, chosen from a range of over 2,000 names.
Sources and Further Reading
- Dictionary of American Family Names: Rolland — Rolland as a variant of Roland, and its dominance in Brittany and southern France.
- Dictionary of American Family Names: Rowland — Middle English Rollant, Germanic Hrōdland, and the Norman introduction.
- Roland: the personal name — the Germanic elements and the Chanson de Roland.
- Adam Rolland of Gask — advocate from 1758, Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Dunfermline school and the Raeburn portrait.
- Guy Mannering — the 1815 novel and the advocate Paulus Pleydell.
- John Rolland — the sixteenth-century makar of The Court of Venus and The Seven Sages.
- Douglas Rolland — the Kilconquhar golfer and two-time Open runner-up.
- Clan Rollo — Old Norse Rolfr, Duncrub and the Rollo spellings, none of which is Rolland.
- Rolland in the 1901 Scottish census — 303 bearers, ranked 1,671st, with a distribution map.
- George F. Black, The Surnames of Scotland — for early Roland and Rolland entries in Scottish charters.