Rafiya
given name · Latin script
Meaning: elevated, exalted; powerful
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 6 countries · latest register: Guyana, 2025
/ɹəfʲjə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Rafiya is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bangladesh than in any other country.
- PKPakistan≈1 in 312K(inferred from the name graph)
- RURussia≈1 in 141Kas Рафия
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 28K
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 Rafiya 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.
- Bangladesh (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 102 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,800 people, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Bangladesh, 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 Рафия in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, KG Kyrgyzstan.
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)elevated, exalted; powerful
Cited for this meaning 1
- African Muslim Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Rafiya 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BD Bangladesh | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Rafiya | 16 |
| RU Russia | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 141K | register #891 | Рафия | 102 |
| PK Pakistan | ≈750 est. | ≈1 in 312K | — | Rafiya | 14 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 536K | — | Rafiya | 6 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 296K | — | Rafiya | 1 |
| GH Ghana | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 115K | — | Rafiya | 4 |
| KZ Kazakhstan | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 100K | 86 | Рафия | 27 |
| KG Kyrgyzstan | ≈41 est. | ≈1 in 145K | — | Рафия | 6 |
| GY Guyana | 1 | 1 in 750K | 1 | Rafiya | 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: Bureau of National Statistics — names tool (monthly birth registrations 2010–2026); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)Rafiya is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Poderosa, elevada
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
dignified
as a nameWhats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of 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.
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)10 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 1 | #593 |
Reference works 2
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
- What does the name Rafiya mean, and where does it come from?
- elevated, exalted; powerful Recorded by African Muslim Names.
- How do you pronounce Rafiya?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹəfʲjə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Is Rafiya a male or female name?
- Rafiya is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: India (India Names Dataset).
- In which country does Rafiya have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.8 thousand people named Rafiya in Bangladesh, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rafiya.
- How common is the name Rafiya?
- In Guyana, the national register counted 1 people named Rafiya in 2025, about 1 in 750 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Rafiya?
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/rafiyaThe 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, “Rafiya”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.