Raylee
Feminine · Old English roots · “A compound of Ray and Lee”
Raylee is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 5,037 girls against 94 boys since 1880.
Raylee is a young American name built from two very old English pieces — Ray and Lee — in the same way Kaylee, Bailey and Braylee were built. It has the falling two-beat rhythm that has carried names in this family for decades: a bright open first syllable, then a soft one. Its record is short but unbroken, and it has held its place through more than one turn of naming fashion.
How old is the name Raylee?
Raylee first appears in US birth records in 1988 — 37 years ago. The typical Raylee is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 5,000 people named Raylee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Raylee most popular?
Raylee peaked in 2017, reaching #877 nationally. Today it ranks #1163, 286 places below that high. See the whole 2017 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From lēah (Old English, 'clearing') to Raylee
The story of Raylee
Raylee belongs to a family of American compound names — Kaylee, Haylee, Baylee, Braylee — assembled from a short first element and the ending -lee. Both halves have long histories of their own: Lee has served as an English surname and given name for both sexes for centuries, and Ray has stood alone as a man's name and as short for Raymond. Joined together, they made something newer than either, appearing in the US record in the late twentieth century and settling in rather than spiking. Its strongest ground has been Texas, Kentucky and Oklahoma, where the -lee family of names took hold earliest and stayed.
Meaningscholars disagree
A compound of Ray and Lee; Lee comes from Old English lēah, 'clearing' or 'meadow'
Lee is the settled half: an English surname and place-name from Old English lēah, a woodland clearing or meadow. The Ray half has two serious readings — the short form of Raymond, from Germanic elements meaning 'counsel' and 'protection', and the ordinary English word ray. Because Raylee is a modern coinage rather than an inherited name, no single meaning was ever fixed for the whole.
How the name formed
- lēahOld English, 'clearing'
- Lee
- Raylee
Related forms: Raelee · Raylie · Raeleigh · Rayleigh
Pronouncing Raylee
RAY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. It rhymes with Bailey and Kaylee, so anyone who can say those can say this on sight.
Nicknames for Raylee
High
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
- 1988
- Most girls named
- 2017312 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #877reached in 2017
- Change vs 2024
- +7.0%199 in 2025, from 186
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.
Raylee in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Raelee in English — spelling variant
- Raylie in English — spelling variant
- Raeleigh in English — spelling variant
- Rayleigh in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma.
Raylees among us
people named Raylee are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 8,077 born in 2025 was named Raylee
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ardelle test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Raylee's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ardelle climbed just as high around 1925, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ardelle's path sketches the road Raylee is walking now.
Raylee 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 Raylee is headed
Raylee should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Raylee beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Raylee in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on first sight for most American English speakers, since Bailey, Kaylee and Riley have made the -lee ending completely familiar.
- Comes with short forms that already stand on their own: Ray and Rae are both established names, not invented nicknames.
- Held a consistent place in the record across several decades rather than arriving and vanishing in one season.
- Two even syllables ending in a vowel, which pairs easily with both short and long surnames.
- It shares its sound with a crowded set — Raelee, Raylie, Raeleigh, Rayleigh — so expect to spell it aloud fairly often, and expect the occasional mishearing as Kaylee or Bailey.
- Almost everyone carrying it is still young. There is no older generation of Raylees to give the name an established, grown-up register yet — that will come with time rather than being there already.
- Its use is concentrated in Texas, Kentucky and Oklahoma, so it may read as more regionally rooted in some parts of the country than others.
- Because it is a modern compound, it has no single agreed meaning to hand a curious child — though both of its halves have real, traceable histories to tell instead.
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What they receive
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Raylee
Feminine · Old English roots · #1163 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Raylees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,000 people named Raylee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Raylee in 2025?
- Raylee ranks #1163 among US girl names in 2025, with 199 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Raylee?
- About 1 in every 8,077 US girls born in 2025 was named Raylee — 199 in all.
- Will my child share the name Raylee with classmates?
- Raylee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Raylee
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dalary#1163 · Essence#1163 · Marlow#1163 · Heavenly#1163 · Bria#1163 · Winslow#1163 · Aminah#1160 · Ayat#1160
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Raylee? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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