Rose Namajunas

Rose Gertrude Namajunas (born June 29, 1992) is an American mixed martial artist. She is signed to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where she competes in the women's strawweight division and is the former two-time UFC Women's Strawweight Champion. As of November 14, 2022, she is #2 in the UFC women's strawweight rankings, and as of October 17, 2022, she is #5 in the UFC women's pound-for-pound rankings. Namajunas was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on (1992-06-29)June 29, 1992, to Lithuanian parents who had moved to the United States in September 1991. She was named Rose (Lithuanian: Rožė) in honor of her great-grandmother Rožė Gotšalkaitė Namajūnienė, whose husband Juozas was an Independent Lithuania military officer. He enlisted in the Lithuanian military in 1933, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1936. During the Soviet invasion of Lithuania in 1939, he fought in the resistance. After the Soviets occupied the country, Juozas was forced to enlist in the Red Army. Following the German declaration of war on the Soviet Union and the subsequent Soviet retreat from the Baltic states, Juozas left the Red Army and retired to civilian life. When the Soviets re-occupied Lithuania, Juozas was arrested by the NKVD and sent to a prison camp. He was killed by Soviet KGB agents near his home in 1968. Namajunas's grandfather Algimantas Andriukonis was a successful wrestler, and won national championships in Lithuania and competitions in the USSR. Namajunas regularly visits Lithuania and communicates in the Lithuanian language with her grandparents. Namajunas's father Arturas, who suffered from schizophrenia, left the family when Rose was still young and died of pneumonia in Germany in 2008, when Rose was 16. Her mother was a pianist, trained at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Namajunas grew up in Milwaukee in a tough neighborhood, where she was a witness to violence from a young age. Her mother worked a lot and her brother was only rarely home. Her neighborhood friends nicknamed her "Thug Rose", due to the fact that she was the only white girl among them and was the smallest, yet acted tougher than any of them. Namajunas has mentioned being a victim of child sexual abuse, while emphasizing that she does not want to speak about specific details. She graduated from Milwaukee High School of the Arts, where she was an accomplished cross-country runner.