Raelee
Feminine
Raelee is Rae joined to Lee, and Lee is the most-used middle name in American history. For the better part of a century it went on the second line of the certificate for daughters and sons alike, and then it climbed onto the end of first names.
How old is the name Raelee?
Raelee first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Raelee is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,900 people named Raelee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Raelee most popular?
Raelee peaked in 2020, reaching #1924 nationally. Today it ranks #2859, 935 places below that high. See the whole 2020 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Raelee
Our story of Raelee is really the story of Lee, which did something no other name in American English has managed. It was a surname, then a first name, and then — for generation after generation across the South and the Midwest — the middle name that went on almost every certificate, so common that it stopped being noticed at all. A name that ubiquitous eventually stops being a name and becomes a sound families reach for automatically, and that is how it climbed onto the end of other names: Kaylee, Marlee, Raelee. The second half of this name was in half the country's paperwork before it was in anybody's first name.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Neither half yields a clean reading for the compound. Rae is the Scottish and English short form of Rachel, Hebrew for a ewe, and separately a Scottish surname. Lee is Old English leah, a woodland clearing, through the English surname and place-name — and separately an American surname of enormous currency. Both pieces are real; the compound is recent and is not recorded with a meaning of its own.
Pronouncing Raelee
RAY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. There is no ambiguity in the sound; every variation this name has lives in the spelling.
Nicknames for Raelee
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1969
- Most girls named
- 2015104 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1924reached in 2020
- Change vs 2024
- −9.2%59 in 2025, from 65
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Raelee in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma.
Raelees among us
people named Raelee are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 27,242 born in 2025 was named Raelee
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Raelee
- #2859
- Raelee on the 2025 chart
- #875
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Raelee went to 59 girls in 2025, but Raelle is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 85, which makes it the 875th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,984 places above the chart.
- Raelee59
- Raelle26
About 1 girl in 18,909 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 27,242 for Raelee itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Litzi test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Raelee's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Litzi climbed just as high around 2000, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Litzi's path sketches the road Raelee is walking now.
Raelee sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Raelee is headed
Raelee should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Raelee beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Raelee in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Rae and Lee are both real names on their own, which gives the child two ready short forms.
- Two syllables that every English speaker says correctly at first sight.
- Both halves have genuinely long American records rather than being newly assembled sounds.
- Raelee, Raelie, Rayleigh and Raleigh are all in use and none of them is standard.
- It has no documented meaning as a whole, so anything offered for it is supplied.
- It sits very close to Kaylee and Bailey and will be misheard as both.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Raelee
Feminine · #2859 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Raelees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,900 people named Raelee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Raelee?
- Raelee is the most-used spelling in US records — 59 of the 85 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Raelle.
- How popular is the name Raelee in 2025?
- Raelee ranks #2859 among US girl names in 2025, with 59 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Raelee?
- About 1 in every 27,242 US girls born in 2025 was named Raelee — 59 in all.
- Will my child share the name Raelee with classmates?
- Raelee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Raelee
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Emilly#2859 · Pyper#2859 · Amarie#2859 · Luci#2859 · Issa#2859 · Azaliah#2859 · Malinda#2859 · Kyah#2859
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Raelee? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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