- Means “wise protector”
- Can be used as a first name, but is also a common last name
- Famous for writer Raymond Chandler, actor Raymond Burr, and football star Ray Lewis
- Part of the title of the TV series, Everybody Loves Raymond
The text below is excerpted with permission from the book The Encyclopedia of American Last Names: Family Genealogy and Meanings for 1000 Surnames of Early European Settlers to the United States.
History of the name Raymond
Raymond is from the source that has given Ronald, Reginald and Reynard.
It comes from an old Christian name Raimundus, a Teutonic name meaning wise protection, or is derived from an Anglo-Saxon first name, Regemund, with the meaning “wise or mighty protector,” or “protection.”
Reynard is also the French name for fox. In old French, golpe was the name for fox, and in an animal epic of the Middle Ages, the fox was named Mr. Reynard.
Thereafter the old French word for fox was dropped, and Reynard was substituted. So a name with a very exalted meaning has come to have almost a suggestion of slyness about it.
