Raif
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Acıması olan, merhametli
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɾaif/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Raif is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Türkiye than in any other country.
- TRTürkiye≈1 in 8.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- XKKosovo≈1 in 650
- CYCyprus≈1 in 4.4K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Türkiye (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 75 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 650 (inferred from the name graph)
≈10,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Kosovo, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Acıması olan, merhametli.
Sources 1
- TDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Raif 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TR Türkiye | #767 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | — | Raif | 62 |
| XK Kosovo | #565 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 650 | 1.4K | Raif | 3 |
| US United States | — | 457 | 1 in 728K | 453 | Raif | 75 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈440 est. | ≈1 in 527K | listed | Raif | 11 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | — | ≈370 est. | ≈1 in 93K | — | Raif | 25 |
| MK North Macedonia | #525 | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 6.6K | — | Raif | 3 |
| CY Cyprus | #339 | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | — | Raif | 11 |
| AL Albania | — | 76 | 1 in 40K | 76 | — | 1 |
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: ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the pk-muslim-names-cc0 register; INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts). 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)
Raif is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In cim, hoarfrost
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Köse Mehmed Raif Paşab. 1836GROttoman statesman
- Raif Dinçb. 1874TRTurkish statesperson (1874–1949)
- Raif Necdet Kestellib. 1881TRTurkish writer (1880–1937)
- Raif Aybarb. 1915TRTurkish statesperson (1915–2005)
- Rauf Denktaşb. 1924CYnot in their usual nameLeader of Turkish Cypriots and founding President of TRNC (1924-2012)
- Raʾif Nagmb. 1926JOnot in their usual nameJordanian civil engineer
- Raif Janszb. 1935LKbadminton player
- Raif Hikmet Çamb. 1946TRTurkish actor (1946–2015)
- Raif Denktaşb. 1951TRTurkish Cypriot artist and statesperson (1951–1985)
- Raif O. Onvuralb. 1959computer scientist (1959-)
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 60 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 1.4K | #563 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 453 | #21,974 |
| AL Albania | INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts) | — | 76 | #3,339 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 16 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4 | #21,974 |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | 2020 | 1 | — |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 1 | #563 |
| PK Pakistan | Muslim given names (CC0) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Тахиров, Речник на турските лични имена в България
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
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
- How do you pronounce Raif?
- A machine transcription gives /ɾaif/ (IPA) for Turkish.
- What does the name Raif mean?
- Recorded meaning: Acıması olan, merhametli.
- Is Raif a male or female name?
- Raif is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Raif have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 10 thousand people named Raif in Türkiye, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled raif.
- How common is the name Raif?
- In the United States, the national register counted 457 people named Raif in 2020, about 1 in 728 thousand residents.
- How common is Raif compared with other names?
- In Türkiye, Raif is the 767th most common given name of 264,080 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Raif?
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/raifThe 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, “Raif” — the 767th most common given name in Türkiye. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.