Blend of Rae (short for Rachel, 'ewe') and the suffix -leen (from Eileen or Colleen).
Raeleen is a lyrical compound name drawing on two separate but harmonious naming traditions. The Rae element is most commonly understood as a short form of Rachel, the Hebrew name meaning "ewe" — the beloved wife of Jacob in Genesis whose story of patient love and eventual motherhood made her one of the most emotionally resonant figures in the Hebrew Bible. In some usage, Rae also functions as a feminine form of Ray, from the Old Germanic Raginhar, meaning "wise protector" or "counsel power."
Rae on its own gained considerable currency in the twentieth century as both an independent name and a linking element in compound constructions. The -leen suffix connects Raeleen to a large family of names ending in the liquid, flowing sound: Eileen, Colleen, Kathleen, Charlene, Marlene. Many of these derive from Celtic or Gaelic diminutive traditions — the Irish -lín suffix expressing affection and smallness — while others were created by analogy, because the ending itself came to carry an aura of femininity and warmth independent of its etymology.
Colleen and Eileen in particular were enormously popular in mid-twentieth-century Irish-American communities, and their phonetic pattern became a productive template for new name coinage. Raeleen blends the Old Testament depth of Rachel with the Celtic musicality of the -leen tradition, creating a name that sounds simultaneously ancient and invented — which is, of course, what all names are. It carries a gentle luminosity, the Rae half suggesting light and the -leen half suggesting softness. It was most frequently given in the United States during the 1950s through 1970s, and today it has the pleasant quality of feeling warmly vintage without being worn.