Fish That Start With R

17 fish Animals and nature Checked 9 Oct 2026

Here are 17 fish that start with R, each with a one-line description so you can tell what it is. The best-known ones come first, then the full list in A to Z order.

Seventeen fish begin with R. The ray, the rainbow trout and the red snapper are the familiar ones, and rainbow shows up again with the rainbow fish, rainbow runner and rainbow smelt joining the trout.

Rock is another repeating start: rock beauty, rock bass and rock hind, plus the rockfish. The remora has a sucking disk that lets it ride on larger animals. The roach and the rudd are European freshwater fish that look alike, and the red drum is a large food fish of the United States coast.

Fish starting with R: 17
Best known: ray, rainbow trout
Longest name: rainbow runner

Best-known fish that start with R

The ones most people will recognise, good for school lists, quizzes and games.

ray
rainbow trout
red snapper

All fish that start with R

#	Name	What it is
1	rainbow fish	small freshwater fish of South America and the West Indies; often kept in aquariums
2	rainbow runner	streamlined cigar-shaped jack; good game fish
3	rainbow smelt	important marine and landlocked food fish of eastern North America and Alaska
4	rainbow trout	found in Pacific coastal waters and streams from lower California to Alaska
5	ray	cartilaginous fishes having horizontally flattened bodies and enlarged winglike pectoral fins with gills on the...
6	razor fish	any of several small wrasses with compressed sharp-edged heads of the West Indies and Mediterranean
7	red drum	large edible fish found off coast of United States from Massachusetts to Mexico
8	red mullet	brightly colored tropical fishes with chin barbels
9	red snapper	an esteemed food fish with pinkish red head and body
10	redfish	male salmon that has recently spawned
11	remora	marine fishes with a flattened elongated body and a sucking disk on the head for attaching to large fish or moving...
12	roach	European freshwater food fish having a greenish back
13	rock bass	a kind of sea bass
14	rock beauty	gold and black butterflyfish found from West Indies to Brazil
15	rock hind	found around rocky coasts or on reefs
16	rockfish	marine food fish found among rocks along the northern coasts of Europe and America
17	rudd	European freshwater fish resembling the roach

Short fish with R

ray
roach
rudd

Questions people ask

How many fish start with R?

This list has 17 fish starting with R, from well-known ones like ray, rainbow trout, red snapper to rarer kinds.

What fish start with R?

Well-known examples are ray, rainbow trout, red snapper.

Source: Princeton WordNet, a public dictionary database, reviewed by our editors to keep only clear, real members of the list. Meanings are short dictionary glosses.

See every letter on one page: fish A to Z