Sebastes is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the subfamily Sebastinae part of the family Scorpaenidae, most of which have the common name of rockfish.

[6] Some authorities subdivide this large genus into subgenera as follows:[7] The genus name is derived from the Greek Sebastos, an honorific used in ancient Greek for the Roman imperial title of Augustus, an allusion to the old name for S. norvegicus on Ibiza, its type locality, which Cuvier translated as "august" or "venerable".

[12] Rockfish range from the intertidal zone to almost 3,000 m (9,800 ft) deep, usually living benthically on various substrates, often, as the name suggests, around rock outcrops.

Highly radioactive rockfish have been caught in a port near Fukushima city, Japan, not far from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, nearly 2 years after the nuclear disaster (ex: 107000 Bq/kg[14] (2013-02-12); 116000 Bq/kg[14] (2013-02-13) and 132000Bq/kg[14] (2013-02-13), respectively 1070, 1160, and 1320 times more than the maximum allowed by Japanese authorities (as updated on April 1, 2012)[14] Sebastes rockfish are important sport and commercial fish, and many species have been overfished.

Sebastes species are sometimes fraudulently substituted for the more expensive northern red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus).