Roger Allen

(male) From an Old French personal name, Rog(i)er, of Germanic (Frankish) origin, from hrōd ‘fame’ + gār, gēr ‘spear’. This was adopted by the Normans and introduced by them to Britain, replacing the native Old English form Hrōðgār. Roger was one of the most popular boys' names throughout the medieval period, but less so after the Reformation, though it has continued in regular use to the present day. Roger, Count of Sicily (c.1031–1101), son of Tancred, recovered Sicily from the Arabs. His son, also called Roger, ruled Sicily as king, presiding over a court noted for its splendour and patronage of the arts.

English and Scottish: from a Celtic personal name of great antiquity and obscurity. In England the personal name is now usually spelled Alan, the surname Allen; in Scotland the surname is more often Allan. Various suggestions have been put forward regarding its origin; the most plausible is that it originally meant ‘little rock’. Compare Gaelic ailín, diminutive of ail ‘rock’. The present-day frequency of the surname Allen in England and Ireland is partly accounted for by the popularity of the personal name among Breton followers of William the Conqueror, by whom it was imported first to Britain and then to Ireland. St. Alan(us) was a 5th-century bishop of Quimper, who was a cult figure in medieval Brittany. Another St. Al(l)an was a Cornish or Breton saint of the 6th century, to whom a church in Cornwall is dedicated.