Rae
loc · Latin script
Meaning: Gaelic-origin surname, found in central and southern Scotland by c.1231; later form probably reflecting pronunciation
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Rae is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 65K(measured from records)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 7.9K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 8.2K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Rae itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 469 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,800 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Raee in IN India, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and Ra in NL Netherlands, NZ New Zealand.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Gaelic-origin surname, found in central and southern Scotland by c.1231; later form probably reflecting pronunciation. MacRae means ‘son of grace’.
Sources 1
- Scottish Surnames
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rae counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | ≈6,800 est. | ≈1 in 9.7K | 1.4K | Raee | 219 |
| IN India | 5,478 | 1 in 242K | 5.5K | Raee | 75 |
| US United States | 5,094 | 1 in 65K | 254K | Rae | 469 |
| AU Australia | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | 1K | Raee | 186 |
| BR Brazil | 2,919as Ra | 1 in 73K | 2.9K | — | 3 |
| NL Netherlands | 2,639as Ras | 1 in 6.5K | 16K | Ra | 32 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈620 est. | ≈1 in 7.9K | 178 | Ra | 101 |
| FI Finland | 478 | 1 in 12K | 3K | — | 16 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Rae is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Originally written Raa; possibly from Gaelic rath ‘grace’. Robert Raa is recorded as witnessing a charter to Culross Abbey.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, A counsellor; also a diminutive of names beginning with Rae-.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, Scottish form of Roe; first attested Robert Raa c1231 Black
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, German or Portuguese; God heals / healed by God
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, Charlotte, US actress; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Charlotte Raeb. 1926USAmerican actress (1926–2018)
- Alec Baldwinb. 1958USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1958)
- Rae Dawn Chongb. 1961CACanadian-American actress
- Paul Raeb. 1968USAmerican actor
- Carly Rae Jepsenb. 1985CACanadian singer (born 1985)
- Issa Raeb. 1985USAmerican actress, writer and producer
- Zelda Williamsb. 1989USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Kieszab. 1989CAnot in their usual nameCanadian singer and songwriter
- Alyson Stonerb. 1993USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, singer and dancer
- Addison Raeb. 2000USAmerican singer and actress (born 2000)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 70 sources across 37 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 13K | #2,014 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 654 | #2,014 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 193 | #1,805 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 171 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 79 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 72 | #3,857 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 28 | #16,279 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 21 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 15 | #244 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 13 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1959 | 12 | — |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 12 | #25,977 |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Rae come from?
- Gaelic-origin surname, found in central and southern Scotland by c.1231; later form probably reflecting pronunciation. MacRae means ‘son of grace’. Recorded by Scottish Surnames.
- What does the name Rae mean?
- Recorded meaning: Gaelic-origin surname, found in central and southern Scotland by c.1231; later form probably reflecting pronunciation.
- In which country does Rae have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.8 thousand people named Rae in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled raee.
- How common is the name Rae?
- In India, the national register counted 5,478 people named Rae, about 1 in 242 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Rae?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/raeThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Rae”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.