Roswell

English

Etymology

English habitational surname. Metathesized from Middle English Roweshill, from a contraction of either the Old English personal name Hrōþwulf or its Norman cognate Rolf, Rouf, Rou (in the genitive case, adding -es) + Old English hyll (“hill”).

Proper noun

Roswell (countable and uncountable, plural Roswells)

1. A surname.
2. A place in the United States:
   1. A city in Fulton County, Georgia.
   2. An unincorporated community in Canyon County, Idaho.
   3. A city, the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, known for conspiracy theories that its Roswell Army Air Field has recovered UFOs and extraterrestrials.
      • (1997) So go on with your life / Forget that Roswell crap / Show love to the black suit / 'Cuz that's the Men In [...] Black "Men in Black" by Will Smith (1997)
      1. The most significant ufological event of a region.
         • 1998, Jim Wilson, “Six Unexplainable Encounters”, in Popular Mechanics, Hearst Magazines, page 66:

           Among the cases he examined was an incident that has come to be known as England’s Roswell.

         • 2007, Rodney Castleden, Natural Disasters That Changed the World, Book Sales, page 272:

           Kazantsev’s story was for some unaccountable reason taken seriously in the West, leading to some enthusiasts referring to Tunguska as the Russian Roswell.

         • 2008, Noe Torres, Ruben Uriarte, Mexico's Roswell: The Chihuahua UFO Crash, Lulu.com, page 3:

           Dubbed “Mexico’s Roswell,” the mid-air collision near Coyame of an airplane and a UFO has been the subject of a major documentary for the History Channel’s UFO Hunters series in 2008, and numerous articles in newspapers, magazines, and Websites.

   4. A village in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.
   5. A census-designated place in Miner County, South Dakota.

Derived terms

• Roswellian

Translations

place name

• Japanese: ロズウェル (Rozuweru)

Statistics

• According to the 2010 United States Census, Roswell is the 38582^nd most common surname in the United States, belonging to 573 individuals. Roswell is most common among White (86.56%) individuals.

Further reading

• Hanks, Patrick, editor (2003), “Roswell”, in Dictionary of American Family Names, volume 3, New York City: Oxford University Press, →ISBN.

Anagrams

• Wollers