Meaning and history
Raphaël comes from the Hebrew name רָפָאֵל (Rafaʾel), meaning “God heals,” formed from רָפָא (rafa), “to heal,” and אֵל (ʾel), “God.” In Hebrew tradition, Raphael is an archangel who appears in the Book of Tobit, where he travels with Tobias under the name Azarias and ultimately restores Tobit’s sight; he is not named in the New Testament, though tradition associates him with the angel in John 5:4. The name has never been common in the English-speaking world, but it has been widely used elsewhere in Europe, and a notable bearer was the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio (1483–1520), known in English as Raphael.
20062006: 331 births, rank #681
2007: 333 births, rank #700
2008: 397 births, rank #622
2009: 400 births, rank #623
2010: 369 births, rank #653
20112011: 356 births, rank #665
2012: 387 births, rank #628
2013: 423 births, rank #598
2014: 461 births, rank #596
2015: 533 births, rank #535
20162016: 551 births, rank #533
2017: 561 births, rank #516
2018: 536 births, rank #529
2019: 545 births, rank #523
2020: 559 births, rank #512
20212021: 548 births, rank #537
2022: 641 births, rank #483
2023: 686 births, rank #451
2024: 751 births, rank #420
20252025: 807 births, rank #394
Raphael rose from #420 to #394 for boys between 2024 and 2025. That year also produced its highest recorded birth count, at 807.