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Ralph started out as Rafe, but slowly the tide turned in the 19th century - Ralph Rackstraw was, of course, a patrician who got exchanged for a common infant as a baby, so part of the joke is that his name gives a big fat clue to his actual origins. Like Oliver Twist, speaking perfect English in spite of his erratic upbringing.

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Basically, it's a spelling pronunciation. I blame universal literacy. So, though I wouldn't hesitate to accuse Ralph Fiennes of towering egoism, nor would I necessarily castigate the man for keeping an old tradition alive. (I knew a young Ralph once who must have been born in the 1990s or late 1980s: parents were a high-flying financier and a most pretentious teacher of English.)