Rafia — girls' name

What the Data Says About Rafia

The Social Security Administration has registered 105 babies named Rafia between 1988 and 2017, spanning 30 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Rafia currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 2017. The name reached its historical peak in 2002, when 11 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Rafia performed strongest in the 1990s, accumulating 46 births during that ten-year window. Across the 4 decades of recorded activity, Rafia shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 11 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by . In total, SSA state-level files list Rafia in 1 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Rafia in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 105 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.