Rafferty

At the 2020 census, 8,971 Americans bore the surname Rafferty — 3,851st out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 33,300.

By the numbers

People: 8,971
Rank: 3,851st
How common: 1 in 33,300
Per 100,000: 3.0

Where the name comes from

Origin Irish

Anglicized form of Irish Ó Rabhartaigh (“descendants of Rabhartach”), a personal name derived from rabharta (“flood, tide”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Rafferty described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 92.8%
Hispanic or Latino 2.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.9%
Black, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.2%

Notable people called Rafferty

Gerry Rafferty (1947–2011)Scottish singer-songwriter
Sarah Rafferty (born 1972)American actress
Claire Rafferty (born 1989)English association football player
Frances Rafferty (1922–2004)American actress
Chips Rafferty (1909–1971)Australian actor

People named Rafferty with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Rafferty

Rafael

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.