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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • French : from a dialect variant of rabe ‘turnip’, ‘oilseed rape’ (itself a southern form of rave); a metonymic occupational name for a grower of turnips or rape, or perhaps a derisory nickname.
  • Hungarian (Rába) : habitational name from a place called Rába, or alternatively a topographic name for someone who lived by the river Rába, a tributary of the Danube in western Hungary. The name also occurs in Germany.

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