Name Awesome

Ralf

Boys' name

Advice, counsel + wolf, through Ralph

Ralf has been given to 304 babies in the U.S. since 1920. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1963, with 19 recorded.

Babies named Ralf, 2024

1 in 669,000

Ralf over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Ralf: meaning, origin, and history

Advice, counsel + wolf, through Ralph

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Ralf means

Ralf belongs to the name family reached through Ralf → Ralf → Ralph → Rǣdwulf. Its meaning is “advice, counsel + wolf”.

Origin, language, and formation

Ralf is used in Estonian, Finnish, German and Swedish.

Ralf comes through German Ralf.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Ralf, Ralph and Rǣdwulf.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Ralf is pronounced /ˈrɑlf/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 304 boys were recorded with the name Ralf between 1920 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 19 in 1963; its best national rank was #1,881 in 1963.

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 Ralf?

Ralf had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 669,000
5 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 345,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,412 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Ralf sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2024 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 463,412 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ralf. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Ralfs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Ralf was born before 1960 — so the typical Ralf is around 65 today.

Median birth year
1960
About 65 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
33.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
215
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 33.6% of all recorded uses (102).

Is Ralf 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
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1963 (19)
Years since peak
62
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
33.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,881
1963

Spellings of Ralf

Ralf is not the most common spelling — Ralph is, with 36.0% against Ralf's 0.03%.

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 Ralf is used

Across 1910–2025, Ralf was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,903,406 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Ralf has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Ralf around the world

Where Ralf 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
    1997–2025
    #1,897
    in 2025
  • France
    1943–1989
    #3,090
    in 1989
  • Canada
    2022–2022
    #2,959
    in 2022
  • South Australia
    1950–1969
    #510
    in 1969

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, 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. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Ralf by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,881
1963
Peak year
1963
19 that year
First recorded
1920
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
304
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Ralf

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

RaloRalphieRallyRalstonRalieghRalikRalenRalphyRalphealAlfRalphaelRaleighRalRaliekRalphelRallsRalonRalandRallieRalpheRaliqueRalphRalphellThoralf

Sibling names for Ralf

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 Ralf

Top names of 1963, Ralf's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1963Boys' names starting with RShort German Boy Names