Raisa
A Hebrew name meaning "easy, carefree". Most Poles have never met one: it sits just outside the top 500 and goes to only a few girls each year, fewer now than a decade back.
Raisa Pronunciation
Raisa is pronounced rah-EE-sah (/raˈisa/).
What Raisa means
Where Raisa comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Raisa reached Poland from the east, familiar in Russian and Ukrainian homes long before it appeared on any Polish form. Its roots run back to Hebrew. The meaning Polish speakers give it, lekka, beztroska, easy and carefree, came later, layered onto the sound rather than dug from the original word.
The best known bearer is Raisa Gorbaczowa, wife of the last Soviet leader. She trained as a sociologist and carried herself through public life with a poise the cameras kept returning to. Her name traveled onto front pages far from Moscow.
In a Polish class register, Raisa sits among the Zuzannas and Katarzynas like a guest with an eastern passport. Short and unhurried. It keeps its own weather, and beneath the Polish gloss of beztroska the Hebrew origin holds.
How many people are named Raisa
1 in 5149 women in Poland is named Raisa. 4,378 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #518 among female names.
Raisa's popularity over time
2 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #1790 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2012. Still the #518 name among living women, even as it slips to #1790 among newborns.
Where Raisa is most popular
Raisa is most popular in Masovian, 307% above the national average (4 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Greater Poland (+235%).
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Masovian4 girls born+307%
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Greater Poland2 girls born+235%
Raisa as a middle name
Raisa is a first name for 4,378 women in Poland and a middle name for another 102, a 98/2 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 659th, between Hilda (102) and Anna Maria (101).
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#657 Joan103
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#658 Hilda102
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#659 Raisa102
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#660 Anna Maria101
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#661 Dioniza101