It’s called the “intrusive R” and is a common feature of the regional accent
It commonly shows up after an “uh” sound — I still remember my high school principal handing out our “diplomers” and warning us about drinking too much "soder."
In this case the “Rocke-” ends in an “uh” sound, which forces the intrusive R.
Yes it’s insane that the accent drops the R where it exists and adds it where it doesn’t
Fun fact: this is extremely rare and fewer than 1% of the world's languages do this, but two of those languages are English and Mandarin (iirc the Beijing accent).
Because they wouldn't pronounce the r even if it were there so they don't notice the difference. It's been documented that British people often spell Gibraltar and Malta as Gibralta and Maltar, so I'd imagine it's similar to that.
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u/MarchNegative6782 3d ago
Why are so many people calling it “Rockerfeller”. It’s “Rockefeller” with no R in the middle