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The first name 
Raven

Raven is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.

Raven – popular and common in the US

The name Raven isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Raven ranks 431. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 4 were named Raven. In the entire USA, approximately 41,497 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Raven. That is 0.01 % of all living Americans.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Raven

What does the name 
Raven mean?

The name Raven comes from the name of the bird, developed from Old English ‘hræfn’. It was taken from the Old Norse word ‘hrafn’, which is still in use in Icelandic.

Ravens are... associated with the Norse god Odin. Huginn and Muninn (meaning 'thought' and 'memory') fly all over the world and bring Odin information.

Raven has 5 letters 
and begins with an R

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter R is neither particularly common nor particularly rare as a first letter for girls' names: 4.1% of all common girls' names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of girls' names are A and S, while X and U are the least common initials of girls' names.

With five letters, the name Raven is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.

Thus, it follows that if 4.1% of all girls' names start with an R, this initial letter occurs about as often as all 26 letters on average. And maybe interesting to know: Rebecca is the girls’ name starting with R, which is the most common of all.

Other names with 
R, a, v, e and n

If you take all the letters in the name Raven – R, a, v, e and n – and put them together again, you can form other names, such as Nerva or others.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Raven

If your name is Raven and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...

This is how you spell the name Raven

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Raven, you can simply say:

Rocket

Apple

Violin

Elephant

Nut

This is how the name Raven is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Raven in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Raven

Raven

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Raven

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Raven is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

R
A
V
E
N

Have you ever waved the name Raven

In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.

R
A
V
E
N

Beeping like crazy...

In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Raven sounds like this: