Raylee
A feminine name combining the word "ray" and the name Lee.
Name Census estimates that about 4,884 living Americans carry the first name Raylee. It is a predominantly female name (98.1% of registrations). The average person named Raylee today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Raylee births was 2017 (318 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Raylee. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Raylee with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Raylee is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 94 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Raylee is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 13 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
4.9K
~ 1 in 70,179 Americans
Peak year
2017
318 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2020 SSA rank
#1,249
Tracked since 1988
Census
Raylee in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,545 people with the first name Raylee, which placed it at #4,998 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
#4,998
National first-name rank
People counted
3.5K
3,545 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
79.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Raylee
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Raylee is White at 79.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (8.0%) and Two or More Races (6.5%). 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 Raylee 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 Raylee at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White79.0% · 2,800
- Hispanic or Latino8.0% · 285
- Two or more races6.5% · 231
- Black or African American3.7% · 130
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.2% · 77
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.6% · 22
Gender
Gender distribution for Raylee
Raylee leans heavily female at 98.1% of total registrations, but 94 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Raylee as a male name
- Ranked #11,680 in 2020
- 6 male births in 2020
- Peak: 2006 (9 births)
Raylee as a female name
- Ranked #1,249 in 2024
- 186 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2017 (312 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Raylee leans strongly female. 3,412 people counted with this name were female (96.2%), compared with 133 male bearers (3.8%).
Popularity
Raylee: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Raylee from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 2,570 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Raylee remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Raylee 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 Raylee during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Raylees live
The SSA's state-level files cover 35 states and territories. Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky recorded the most babies named Raylee, while New Mexico, Nebraska, Minnesota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 101 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Raylee
The name Raylee is a relatively modern combination of the names Ray and Lee, both of which have their origins in older names and languages.
Ray is a shortened form of the name Raymond, which comes from the Germanic name Raimund or Reimund. This name is derived from the elements "ragin" meaning "counsel" and "mund" meaning "protection". It was a popular name among Frankish nobles during the Middle Ages and was brought to England by the Normans after the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Lee is a common English surname that can also be used as a given name. It is derived from the Old English word "leah" meaning "meadow" or "clearing". It was originally used as a place name and later adopted as a surname.
The combination of Ray and Lee to form the name Raylee appears to be a modern invention, likely in the late 20th or early 21st century. It does not seem to have any specific historical or cultural significance, but rather is a creative blend of two existing names.
While there are no famous historical figures specifically named Raylee, there are a few notable individuals who have shared either the first or last name component.
Raymond de Toulouse (1185-1249) was a French nobleman and military leader who played a prominent role in the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in southern France.
Raymond Lully (1232-1315) was a Majorcan philosopher, logician, and Franciscan tertiary who made significant contributions to the development of computational theory.
Lee Trevino (born 1939) is an American professional golfer who has won numerous major championships, including six majors on the PGA Tour and 29 PGA Tour victories overall.
Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015) was the first Prime Minister of Singapore, governing for three decades and playing a key role in transforming the country into a modern and prosperous nation.
Harper Lee (1926-2016) was an American novelist best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", which dealt with racial injustice in the American South.
People
Raylee + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Raylee 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
Raylee: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Raylee?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 4,884 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Raylee 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 70,179 US residents.
Is Raylee a common name?
We classify Raylee as "Rare". It ranks above 96.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 4,930 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Raylee most popular?
The single biggest year for Raylee was 2017, when 318 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Raylee is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Raylee in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,545 people with the name Raylee, or 1.17 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,998 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 Raylee 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 Raylee?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Raylee leans strongly female. 3,412 people counted with this name were female (96.2%), compared with 133 male bearers (3.8%). 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 Raylee?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Raylee is White at 79.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (8.0%) and Two or More Races (6.5%). 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 Raylee most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Raylee in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.0% (2,800 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 Raylee in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Raylee a female name?
Yes, 98.1% of people registered as Raylee in the SSA data are female. 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 Raylee still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Raylee 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 Raylee 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 common is the name Raylee?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.