Raphael
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: from the Hebrew male personal name Refael, literally 'heal-God'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʁafaɛl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Raphael is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the 27th most common given name.
- CHSwitzerland≈1 in 774(inferred from the name graph)
- DODominican Republic≈1 in 101as Rafael
- VEVenezuela≈1 in 149as Rafael
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 Raphael 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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- #200 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 519 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 774 (inferred from the name graph)
873,321 named Rafael, 2022
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Switzerland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Rafael in BR Brazil, VE Venezuela, US United States and 4 more.
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)
from the Hebrew male personal name Refael, literally 'heal-God'
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
How Raphael is read(measured from records)
Raphael is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- French37%
Origine hébraïque, signifie « Dieu a guéri ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
- Portuguese21%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Raphael in Portuguese.
- English20%
from the Hebrew male personal name Refael, literally 'heal-God'
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Hebrew origin; means “God heals” / “the Lord heals.” Used for men.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
Hebrew: God has healed; one of the four archangels in the Bible
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
An archangel in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Raphael 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | #27 | 873,321as Rafael | 1 in 242 | 873K | Rafael | 295 |
| ES Spain | #30 | 217,304as Rafael | 1 in 230 | 225K | Rafael | 273 |
| VE Venezuela | #9 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 149 | — | Rafael | 152 |
| US United States | #492 | 148,942as Rafael | 1 in 2.2K | 149K | Rafael | 519 |
| CO Colombia | #79 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 458 | — | Rafael | 198 |
| DO Dominican Republic | #4 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 101 | 47K | Rafael | 113 |
| SV El Salvador | #50 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 255 | — | Rafael | 104 |
| CH Switzerland | #378 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 774 | 109 | Raphael | 92 |
873,321 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); JCE — Nombres más registrados (annual); FSO — Vornamen der Neugeborenen und Wohnbevölkerung. 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)
Raphael 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 German, Hebr. 'God heals'; also the archangel name
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Raphael Abramovitchb. 1880USpolitician (1880–1963)
- Raphael Lemkinb. 1900USPolish Jewish lawyer (1900–1959)
- Joe Huntb. 1919USnot in their usual nameAmerican tennis player (1919–1945)
- Raphael Sbargeb. 1964USAmerican actor and filmmaker
- Raphael Warnockb. 1969USAmerican pastor and politician (born 1969)
- Raphael Bob-Waksbergb. 1984USAmerican comedian and writer
- Rafi Gavronb. 1989GBnot in their usual nameBritish actor (born 1989)
- Raphael Holzdeppeb. 1989DEGerman pole vaulter
- Raphael Dwamenab. 1995GHGhanaian association football player (1995–2023)
- Raphinhab. 1996BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian association football player (born 1996)
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 122 sources across 68 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 54K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 54K | #534 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 33K | #1,036 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 20K | #1,575 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 2.3K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 807 | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 486 | #4,655 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 400 | #2,470 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 286 | #534 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 232 | #1,575 |
| CH Switzerland | FSO — Vornamen der Neugeborenen und Wohnbevölkerung | 2024 | 62 | #120 |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
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 Raphael?
- A machine transcription gives /ʁafaɛl/ (IPA) for French.
- What are other forms of the name Raphael?
- In the etymology graph, Rafael, Raffaele and Rafał are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Raphael mean, and where does it come from?
- from the Hebrew male personal name Refael, literally 'heal-God' Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Raphael a male or female name?
- Raphael 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 Raphael have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 873 thousand people named Rafael, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Raphael?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 873,321 people named Rafael in 2022, about 1 in 242 residents.
- How common is Raphael compared with other names?
- In Brazil, Raphael is the 27th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Raphael?
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/raphaelThe 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, “Raphael” — the 27th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.