Raymond
A masculine given name of German origin meaning "wise protector".
Name Census estimates that about 390,531 living Americans carry the first name Raymond. It sits at #379 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Raymond today is around 59 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Raymond births was 1924 (12,929 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Raymond. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Raymond with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Raymond is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 3,517 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Raymond have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
391K
~ 1 in 878 Americans
Peak year
1924
12,929 babies that year
Average age
59
years old
2024 SSA rank
#379
Tracked since 1880
Census
Raymond in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 364,286 people with the first name Raymond, which placed it at #135 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#135
National first-name rank
People counted
364K
364,286 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
120.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
68.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Raymond
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Raymond is White at 68.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.3%) and Black (10.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Raymond described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Raymond at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White68.0% · 247,858
- Hispanic or Latino13.3% · 48,282
- Black or African American10.9% · 39,854
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.2% · 15,412
- Two or more races2.5% · 9,283
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 3,597
Gender
Gender distribution for Raymond
Out of the 782,472 babies given the name Raymond since 1880, 99.6% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Raymond as a male name
- Ranked #379 in 2024
- 859 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1924 (12,872 births)
Raymond as a female name
- Ranked #15,999 in 2005
- 6 female births in 2005
- Peak: 1928 (104 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Raymond appears almost entirely male. Of the 364,286 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Raymond: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Raymond from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 124,864 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Raymond by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Raymond during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 3,135 | 0 | 3,135 |
| 1890s | 7,572 | 17 | 7,589 |
| 1900s | 11,650 | 38 | 11,688 |
| 1910s | 71,820 | 275 | 72,095 |
| 1920s | 124,213 | 651 | 124,864 |
| 1930s | 99,583 | 480 | 100,063 |
| 1940s | 109,070 | 376 | 109,446 |
| 1950s | 108,932 | 370 | 109,302 |
| 1960s | 81,788 | 442 | 82,230 |
| 1970s | 49,340 | 423 | 49,763 |
| 1980s | 41,503 | 302 | 41,805 |
| 1990s | 31,721 | 117 | 31,838 |
| 2000s | 20,449 | 26 | 20,475 |
| 2010s | 13,399 | 0 | 13,399 |
| 2020s | 4,780 | 0 | 4,780 |
Geography
Where Raymonds live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Raymond, while Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 14,835 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Raymond
The name Raymond has its origins in the Germanic languages. It is derived from the old German words "ragin" meaning "counsel" and "mund" meaning "protector". The name was originally spelled "Raginmund" or "Ragenmund".
The name Raymond first appeared in the 8th century CE in areas that are now parts of modern-day France and Germany. It was initially popular among the Frankish people who inhabited these regions during the early medieval period.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name can be found in the Latin chronicles of the Carolingian dynasty. The name is mentioned in reference to a Frankish nobleman named Raymond who lived in the late 8th century.
Christianity played a role in the widespread adoption of the name across Europe. Saint Raymond of Penafort, a 13th-century Catholic friar and canonized saint, helped popularize the name. He was born in Spain around 1175 and died in 1275.
Another famous bearer of the name was Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, who lived from 1156 to 1222. He was a key figure in the Albigensian Crusade and came into conflict with the Catholic Church over the Protection of Cathar heretics in his lands.
During the Renaissance period, the name gained further prominence with individuals like Raymond Lully (1232-1315), a Majorcan philosopher and logician who made significant contributions to the development of computational theory.
In the 19th century, the French mathematician and physicist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) was also known by his first name Raymond. He is remembered for his discoveries in the fields of thermodynamics and stoichiometry.
Finally, one cannot discuss the name Raymond without mentioning the American writer and journalist Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), the creator of the famous fictional detective Philip Marlowe and a master of the hardboiled crime genre.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Raymond
People
Raymond + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Raymond as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Raymond: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Raymond?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 390,531 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Raymond going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 878 US residents.
Is Raymond a common name?
We classify Raymond as "Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 782,472 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Raymond most popular?
The single biggest year for Raymond was 1924, when 12,929 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Raymond is about 59 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Raymond in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 364,286 people with the name Raymond, or 120.61 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #135 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Raymond in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Raymond?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Raymond appears almost entirely male. Of the 364,286 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Raymond?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Raymond is White at 68.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.3%) and Black (10.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Raymond most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Raymond in the 2020 Census, accounting for 68.0% (247,858 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Raymond in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Raymond a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Raymond in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Raymond still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Raymond in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Raymond can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Raymond?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.