Ringrose Family History

English: nickname from a Middle English phrase either ringe (the) rose where ringe is a verb or ring on the rose shortened to ringotherose and ringerose where ring is a noun. The name may allude to a game similar to quoits. Compare to ring the bull ‘to play a game where participants throw or swing a ring on to a hook fixed upon a wall or target’.

Alternatively it may allude to a singing dance of a type preserved in the children's singing game ring-a-ring o' roses where participants hold hands and dance in a circle falling down at the end of the song. The game is not recorded in England before 1855 but was known in Massachusets c. 1790 and may derive from an adult dance of older date.