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Rafaela

#2,922 in 2025Girls' name

Feminine form of Raphael

Rafaela has been given to 3,516 babies in the U.S. since 1887. In 2025 it ranked #2,922 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2011, with 60 recorded.

Babies named Rafaela, 2025

1 in 57,200

Rafaela over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Rafaela: meaning, origin, and history

Feminine form of Raphael

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Rafaela means

Rafaela is a feminine form of Raphael.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Rafaela → Raphael. The family’s meaning is “God cures/has healed”, recorded in English with the source elements Rāfāʾēl.

Origin, language, and formation

Rafaela is used in German, Portuguese, Slovene and Spanish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Raphael and Raphaela.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Portuguese, Rafaela is pronounced /ʁa.faˈɛ.lɐ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,516 girls were recorded with the name Rafaela between 1887 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 60 in 2011; its best national rank was #807 in 1903.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #3,326 in 2020 to #2,922 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #3,968 in 2015 to #2,922 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Rafaela?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 57,200
58 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 27,700
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#2,922
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
39,620 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Rafaela sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 39,620 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Rafaela. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Rafaelas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Rafaela was born before 1965 — so the typical Rafaela is around 60 today.

Median birth year
1965
About 60 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
12.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
27.5%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
2,147
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 12.4% of all recorded uses (437).

Is Rafaela rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
+150
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
+404
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+1,046
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.53×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
96.7%
Peak was 2011 (60)
Years since peak
14
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
21.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#807
1903

Spellings of Rafaela

Rafaela is the most-used spelling, taking 41.9% of the 8,393 babies given a near-identical spelling.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Rafaela is used

Across 1910–2025, Rafaela was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in 12,500 girls, against 1 in 31,277 across all states with data. It was least common in Illinois (1 in —).

08 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Texas1 in 12,500
  2. 2California1 in 33,333
  3. 3Arizona1 in 50,000
  4. 4Florida1 in 50,000
  5. 5New Mexico1 in 50,000
  6. 6Massachusetts1 in 100,000
  7. 7New York1 in 100,000
  8. 8Illinois1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Rafaela has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Rafaela around the world

Where Rafaela ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1998–2025
    #2,278
    in 2025
  • Ireland
    2019–2019
    #871
    in 2019
  • France
    1923–2025
    #2,339
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2004–2024
    #2,104
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1967–2013
    #818
    in 2013

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Rafaela

People whose public names include Rafaela, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Rafaela in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Rafaela. Linked forms have their own page here.

RafaellaRaphaelaRaffaellaRaphaelleRaphaëlle

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Rafaela by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#2,922
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 404
Best rank ever
#807
1903
Peak year
2011
60 that year
First recorded
1887
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
3,516
Count in 2025
58

Names similar to Rafaela

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

RaffaelaMakaelaMichelaIzabelaArielaMarcelaGiselaRafaellaManuelaMarielaLeonelaIsabelaTangelaJameelaDarielaMicaelaEstelaJaelaLeelaMikaelaMariselaShaelaAnabelaAniela

Names with a curve like Rafaela

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Rafaela, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

MatildeVeniceZenobiaEloisaMaidaCleopatraMarcelinaAugustinaLorenzaEnaLeonorNada

Sibling names for Rafaela

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Rafaela

Top names of 2011, Rafaela's peak yearThe 2010s in fullOther names that peaked in 1903Girls' names starting with R