Rayven
Feminine · “raven”
Rayven is given to both — 3,018 girls and 170 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Rayven is Raven with a y, and the raven is a bird that European cultures have never been able to leave alone. It follows armies, it is very intelligent, and it turns up in Norse, Celtic and biblical writing doing all three.
How old is the name Rayven?
Rayven first appears in US birth records in 1979 — 46 years ago. The typical Rayven alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 3,000 people named Rayven are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rayven most popular?
Rayven peaked in 1998, reaching #1373 nationally. Today it ranks #2859, 1,486 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From hraefn to Rayven
The story of Rayven
Ravens carry a great deal in northern European writing: Odin's two, Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory, who fly out each day and report back; the raven banner of Viking fleets; the birds that feed Elijah in the book of Kings; the one Noah sends out first, before the dove, and which does not come back. The Norse used Hrafn as an ordinary man's name. English made a surname of the bird, and modern American naming took it forward as a first name for daughters, with Rayven among several respellings of it.
Meaning
raven, the bird
Old English hraefn, the bird, and the same word gives Old Norse hrafn, which was a personal name in its own right in Iceland and Norway. The surname Raven comes from the byname, given for dark hair or for a resemblance in manner. The reading is exact; the y in this spelling is a modern American respelling and changes nothing.
How the name formed
- hraefn
- Raven
- Rayven
Related forms: Raven · Hrafn
Pronouncing Rayven
RAY-vun
Two syllables, stress on the first, the second reduced. Said exactly as Raven; the y is silent as a signal and does nothing you can hear.
Nicknames for Rayven
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
- 1979
- Most girls named
- 2004130 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1373reached in 1998
- Change vs 2024
- +5.4%59 in 2025, from 56
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.
Rayven in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Raven in English — spelling variant
- Hrafn in Old Norse — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, Ohio.
Rayvens among us
people named Rayven are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 27,242 born in 2025 was named Rayven
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Rayven
- #2859
- Rayven on the 2025 chart
- #894
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Rayven went to 59 girls in 2025, but Raiven is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 66, which makes it the 894th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,965 places above the chart.
- Rayven59
- Raiven7
About 1 girl in 24,353 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 27,242 for Rayven 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 Tameca test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rayven's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tameca climbed just as high around 1976, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tameca's path sketches the road Rayven is walking now.
Rayven 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 Rayven is headed
Rayven 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.
Rayven beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rayven in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A concrete meaning — an actual bird — with genuinely rich documented associations.
- Ray and Rae are both ready short forms and both are established names.
- Two syllables that every English speaker says correctly on sight.
- Raven is the standard spelling and this one will be corrected for life.
- The bird carries dark and funereal associations in English literature, which arrive with the name.
- The y-respelling ties it closely to one moment in American naming.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Rayven
Feminine · #2859 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rayvens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,000 people named Rayven are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Rayven?
- Rayven is the most-used spelling in US records — 59 of the 66 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Raiven.
- How popular is the name Rayven in 2025?
- Rayven ranks #2859 among US girl names in 2025, with 59 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rayven?
- About 1 in every 27,242 US girls born in 2025 was named Rayven — 59 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rayven with classmates?
- Rayven will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rayven
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 Rayven? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rayven and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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