Raymond
Masculine · “counsel and protection”
Raymond is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 779,794 boys against 3,517 girls since 1880. See Raymond as a girl name
Raymond is a Germanic compound that ended up sounding thoroughly French, and it carries one of the strangest careers in medieval Europe. A Raymond from Mallorca spent his life building a machine out of paper discs meant to generate every true statement it was possible to make.
How old is the name Raymond?
Raymond was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Raymond alive today was born around 1945, making them about 80 years old. About 372,000 people named Raymond are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Raymond most popular?
Raymond peaked in 1919, reaching #14 nationally. Today it ranks #394, 380 places below that high. See the whole 1919 chart.
Where it comes from
From Raginmund to Raymond
The story of Raymond
Ramon Llull was a Mallorcan nobleman who abandoned court life in the thirteenth century, learned Arabic, and set out to prove Christianity to Muslim scholars by argument rather than force. To do it he built the Ars Magna: a set of concentric paper wheels lettered with basic concepts, which could be rotated to produce every possible combination of them. It was meant as a machine for finding truth, and it did not work, but Leibniz studied it four centuries later and people who write about the history of computing have been arguing about it ever since. Llull wrote some two hundred and fifty books, in Latin, Catalan and Arabic, and is one reason Catalan exists as a literary language at all.
Meaning
counsel and protection
The two Germanic halves are among the commonest in the whole name stock: the first appears in Reginald and Ronald, the second in Edmund and Sigmund. The compound reached English through Norman French rather than directly.
How the name formed
- Raginmund
- Raimund
- Raymond
Related forms: Ramon · Ramon · Raimondo · Raimund · Raimundo
Pronouncing Raymond
RAY-mund
Two syllables with the weight at the front. French says ray-MOHN with the final consonant silent, and Spanish rah-MOHN.
Nicknames for Raymond
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 192412,873 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #14reached in 1919
- Change vs 2022
- −16.8%807 in 2025, from 970
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.
Raymond in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ramon in Spanish — same name
- Ramon in Catalan — same name
- Raimondo in Italian — same name
- Raimund in German — same name
- Raimundo in Portuguese — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Raymonds among us
people named Raymond are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 2,117 born in 2025 was named Raymond
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 Lee test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Raymond's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lee climbed just as high around 1900, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lee's path sketches the road Raymond is walking now.
Raymond has held the top-100 across 11 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Raymond is headed
Raymond 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.
Raymond beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Raymond in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has a form in every western European language and is recognized across all of them.
- Ray is one of the most established short forms in English and stands alone as a name.
- It has a documented history running from the Franks through medieval Spain to the present.
- Everyone can spell it and say it on first hearing.
- It is strongly associated with the first half of the twentieth century in America.
- One long-running sitcom title has attached itself for a whole generation.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of girls, though it reads overwhelmingly as a boy's name.
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Raymond
Masculine · #394 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Raymonds are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 372,000 people named Raymond are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Raymond in 2025?
- Raymond ranks #394 among US boy names in 2025, with 807 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Raymond?
- About 1 in every 2,117 US boys born in 2025 was named Raymond — 807 in all.
- Will my child share the name Raymond with classmates?
- Raymond will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Raymond
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Raphael#394 · Ari#393 · Jay#392 · Jared#396 · Zander#396 · Kamari#391 · Edwin#398 · Marcelo#398
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Raymond? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Raymond and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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