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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German : from a Germanic personal name composed with rag- ‘advice’, ‘counsel’, rāh(ha) ‘revenge’, or rīc ‘power(ful)’.
  • South German : nickname from a diminutive of Middle High German ‘rough’, derived from a base form reule ‘coarse-haired (person)’. Compare German rauh.
  • habitational name from a place in Rhineland called Reil.

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