Rawlings
A masculine name derived from an English surname referring to a person from a small village.
Name Census estimates that about 289 living Americans carry the first name Rawlings. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 51.5% of registrations being male. The average person named Rawlings today is around 5 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Rawlings births was 2021 (63 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Rawlings. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
289
~ 1 in 1,186,001 Americans
Peak year
2021
63 babies that year
Average age
5
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,184
Tracked since 2012
Census
Rawlings in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 122 people with the first name Rawlings, which placed it at #49,985 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#49,985
National first-name rank
People counted
122
122 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
69.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Rawlings
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rawlings is White at 69.7%. The next largest groups are Black (20.5%) and Hispanic (6.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Rawlings described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Rawlings at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White69.7% · 85
- Black or African American20.5% · 25
- Hispanic or Latino6.6% · 8
- Two or more races2.5% · 3
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 1
Gender
Gender distribution for Rawlings
Rawlings is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 291 total registrations, 150 (51.5%) were male and 141 (48.5%) were female.
Rawlings as a male name
- Ranked #5,184 in 2024
- 19 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (26 births)
Rawlings as a female name
- Ranked #7,155 in 2024
- 16 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (37 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Rawlings on both sides of the split. Of the 127 people counted with this name, 95 were male (74.8%) and 32 were female (25.2%).
Popularity
Rawlings: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Rawlings from the 2010s through to the 2020s, spanning 2 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 214 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Rawlings by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Rawlings during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Rawlings' live
Origin
Meaning and history of Rawlings
The name Rawlings is an English surname that has been derived from the medieval given name Rawlin. The earliest known origin of the name dates back to the 12th century in England. Rawlin is thought to be a diminutive form of the Old Norse name Radulfr, which is composed of the elements "rad" meaning counsel, and "ulfr" meaning wolf. It was likely brought to England by Norse settlers during the Viking invasions and gradually evolved into the spelling Rawlin over time.
The name Rawlin gained popularity during the Middle Ages, and its variant spellings such as Rawlings, Rawlingson, and Rawlinson became common surnames. One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Rawlings can be found in the Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire from 1166, where a person named Radulfus de Rawlings is mentioned.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Rawlings. One of the earliest was Sir Walter Rawlinson (1570-1632), an English landowner and Member of Parliament during the reign of King James I. Another prominent figure was William Rawlinson (1640-1703), an English lawyer and antiquarian who was known for his collection of manuscripts and books, which later became part of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.
In the 18th century, Thomas Rawlinson (1681-1725) was an English clergyman and bibliophile who bequeathed his substantial library to the University of Oxford upon his death. Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895) was a renowned British scholar and diplomat who made significant contributions to the decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions and the study of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations.
Moving into the 20th century, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953) was an American author who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1939 for her novel "The Yearling." She is remembered for her vivid depictions of life in rural Florida and her contributions to southern literature.
These are just a few examples of notable individuals throughout history who have borne the name Rawlings, a moniker that has its roots in the Old Norse language and has evolved over centuries to become a common English surname and occasionally a given name.
People
Rawlings + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Rawlings as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Rawlings: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Rawlings?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 289 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Rawlings going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,186,001 US residents.
Is Rawlings a common name?
We classify Rawlings as "Very Rare". It ranks above 78.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 291 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Rawlings most popular?
The single biggest year for Rawlings was 2021, when 63 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Rawlings is about 5 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Rawlings in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 122 people with the name Rawlings, or 0.04 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #49,985 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Rawlings in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Rawlings?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Rawlings on both sides of the split. Of the 127 people counted with this name, 95 were male (74.8%) and 32 were female (25.2%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Rawlings?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rawlings is White at 69.7%. The next largest groups are Black (20.5%) and Hispanic (6.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Rawlings most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Rawlings in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.7% (85 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Rawlings in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Rawlings a male name?
Yes, 51.5% of people registered as Rawlings in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Rawlings still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Rawlings in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Rawlings can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Rawlings as a first name?
Find out how many Americans are named Rawlings on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.