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.