Raj (Hindi: राज, Urdu: راج, Bengali: রাজ) in different contexts means "rule", "king", "ruler", "emperor" or "royalty" and "power" in the Sanskrit language families of the Indian sub-continent, including Romanes, its closest Indo-European relative. The word is cognate to Latin rex.

Given name or nickname

• Raj Ballav Koirala (born 1982), Nepalese actor
• Raj Gupta, American business executive
• Raj Kamal Jha (born 1966), Indian novelist and journalist
• Raj Kapoor (1924–1988), Indian actor, director and producer
• Raj Kaul, 18th-century ancestor of Jawahar Lal Nehru
• Raj Khosla (1925–1991), Indian director
• Raj Krishna, Indian economist
• Raj Manhas, American educator
• Raj Man Singh Chitrakar, Nepalese artist
• Raj Mohinder Singh Majitha, Indian politician
• Raj Mukherji, New Jersey lobbyist and real estate developer
• Raj Narain (1917–1986), Indian politician
• Raj Pannu (born 1934), Canadian educator and politician
• Raj Patel (born 1972), British-born academic, journalist, activist and writer
• Rajendra Persaud (born 1963), British psychiatrist, broadcaster, and author
• Raj Pradhan, Nepalese cricketer
• Dabbala Rajagopal Raj Reddy (born 1937), Indian-American pioneer in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
• Raj Rajaratnam (born 1957), American former manager of the hedge fund Galleon Group, convicted in 2011 of insider trading
• Raj Rajeshwari Devi (died 1806), queen consort and twice queen regent of Nepal
• Raj Singh (disambiguation), several people
• Raj Thackeray (born 1968), Indian politician

Surname

• Anil Raj (1984–2019), American human rights activist, Amnesty International board member, killed in 2019 in Kabul while working on the United Nations Development Programme
• Besant C. Raj (1933–2018), Indian expert and writer on financial management
• Charan Raj (born 1958), Indian film actor, director, music director, film producer, and writer
• Jagdish Raj (1928–2013), Bollywood actor who holds a Guinness World Record for being the most typecast actor
• K. N. Raj (1924–2010), Indian economist
• Maria Venus Raj (born 1988), Filipino beauty queen, TV personality, model, and actress
• Mithali Raj (born 1982), Indian cricketer
• Prakash Raj or Raj (born 1965), Indian actor and producer
• Subhashni Raj (born 1986), Fijian activist
• Rhea Raj (born 2000), American singer-songwriter
• Lara Raj (born 2005), American singer, producer and member of global pop group KATSEYE

Fictional characters

• Raj Koothrappali, on the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory
• Raj King, played by Aatif Nawaz in the British web series Corner Shop Show
• Roger "Raj" Thomas, on the American TV series What's Happening!! and What's Happening Now!!
• Raj, the neurotic Indian elephant on the American cartoon series Camp Lazlo
• Raj, the shop assistant who appears in every one of David Walliams novels except Awful Auntie
• Raj, The friend of Addison Cooke from the Addison Cooke books.
• Raj Malhotra, in the Bollywood movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge