Rafay
Rafay was given to 7 boys in 2025, #10,425 among boys’ names; 293 Americans have been recorded with it since 1996 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Rafay by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Rafay?
#10,425 among boys’ names, 2025
Rafay fell from #7,904 in 2015 to #10,425 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born fell from 5.2 to 4.1 per million.
22 babies in 2009, the peak
Rafay peaked in 2009, when 22 boys were given it, #4,551 among boys’ names. The 7 births of 2025 are 32% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 7 | #10,425 | 4.1 |
| 2024 | 13 | #6,724 | 7.5 |
| 2023 | 12 | #7,190 | 7.0 |
| 2022 | 13 | #6,741 | 7.4 |
| 2021 | 12 | #6,996 | 6.9 |
| 2020 | 13 | #6,540 | 7.5 |
| 2019 | 8 | #9,537 | 4.5 |
| 2018 | 7 | #10,473 | 3.9 |
| 2017 | 13 | #6,581 | 7.0 |
| 2016 | 8 | #9,468 | 4.2 |
Every recorded year (27)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 10 | #7,904 | 5.2 |
| 2014 | 9 | #8,621 | 4.7 |
| 2013 | 14 | #6,164 | 7.4 |
| 2012 | 10 | #7,990 | 5.3 |
| 2011 | 8 | #9,393 | 4.2 |
| 2010 | 16 | #5,670 | 8.3 |
| 2009 | 22 | #4,551 | 11.1 |
| 2008 | 13 | #6,671 | 6.4 |
| 2007 | 10 | #8,026 | 4.8 |
| 2006 | 10 | #7,864 | 4.9 |
| 2005 | 10 | #7,516 | 5.0 |
| 2004 | 12 | #6,417 | 6.0 |
| 2003 | 10 | #7,106 | 5.1 |
| 2002 | 10 | #6,924 | 5.2 |
| 1998 | 9 | #6,705 | 4.7 |
| 1997 | 8 | #7,116 | 4.2 |
| 1996 | 6 | #8,739 | 3.2 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Rafay a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Rafay has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 27 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Rafay: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Rafay, and how old are they?
An estimated 290 Americans named Rafay and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 14 years old and half are between 7 and 20. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 343 people named Rafay (0 women and girls, 343 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 224 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.5 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 5 names spelled alike, given to 5,011 babies since 1880, Rafay is the fourth most given (5.8% of them). In 2025 it was given to 7 of their 262 babies (2.7%), the fifth most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Rafay
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Rafay and names like it
- Compare Rafay and RafeBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2000sRafay peaked in 2009.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Rafay since 1910.
- The top names of 2009The year the most babies were named Rafay.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Rafay alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with RMost given first.