No offense intended to you at all, but "the way the word rings in current English" seems super subjective. Personally, the notion of "rape" never even occurred to me when I heard this name.

Incidentally, unlike "rapier", words like "raptor" and "rapture" are directly related to the word "rape". These words can be clearly traced back to ancient Greek (meaning something like 'to seize violently'), and perhaps beyond.

Just my $0.02. :-)