Around the year 1000, settlers came in search of land in the wooded, rolling hills, which form the foothills of the Steigerwald. They settled near a creek and cleared parts of the forest to create arable land. The name Röttenbach was originally Rodenbach, derived from the German word for stream or creek (Bach) and the verb roden (to clear land). Wide marshes, which rested on the impermeable layers of brick clay that lie on the Keupere, were not conducive to productive agriculture. Over the centuries the inhabitants cultivated the marshes creating many of the series of ponds used often for carp farming and other aquaculture that still divide the forests to the north, east and west of Röttenbach.