Paola
The girl's name Paola has been in the national records since 1950, with 24,644 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 1,258th. About 24,000 Paolas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 22.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Paola boys named Paola
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 24,644
- Estimated living today
- 24,000
- Median age today
- 22
- Peak year
- 2006
- Best rank
- 302nd
- Rank in 2025
- 1,258th
- First recorded
- 1950
- Girls / boys
- 24,496 / 148
How old the living Paolas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 24,644 babies given the name since 1950, about 24,000 are alive — 99 in every hundred. Roughly 7,500 of them are children and 50 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2003 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Italian
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Paolas
- Queen Paola of Belgium (born 1937)queen consort of the Belgians
- Danna Paola (born 1995)Mexican singer, actress, composer and model
- Paola Suárez (born 1976)Argentine tennis player
- Paola Cortellesi (born 1973)Italian actress and singer
- Paola Egonu (born 1998)Italian volleyball player
- Paola Núñez (born 1978)Mexican actress
- Paola Rey (born 1979)Colombian actress and model
- Paola Espinosa (born 1986)Mexican diver
People named Paola with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Paola is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Paola is most concentrated in California (3.4×), Nevada (3.2×), Arizona (3.0×), Texas (2.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2006
The most popular girls’ names the year Paola peaked:
Paola elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy girls | Paola | 11,280 | — |
| France girls | Paola | 10,395 | 156th |
| Spain girls | Paola | 8,776 | 62nd |
| Switzerland girls | Paola | 149 | 436th |
| Belgium girls | Paola | 143 | 523rd |
| England and Wales girls | Paola | 139 | 2,869th |
| Poland girls | Paola | 98 birth registrations | 225th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Paola: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Paola | 69 | 0.006% | 641st |
| French girls | Switzerland | Paola | 54 | 0.012% | 240th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Paola | 23 | 0.035% | 61st |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Paola | 3 | 0.081% | 15th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Paola is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.01% of children were given it – 29 of them.
Paola: rank by region
In 2025, Paola was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Paola | 836 | 5 |
| Wallonia | Paola | 226 | 12 |
In 2021, Paola was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Paola | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Paola appears in the lists for Province of Liège (157th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Paola by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 555th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Paola among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Paola | 82 | 145 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Paola lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 17,590 women called Paola were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cádiz | Paola | 1,143 | 1.784 | 111 |
| Badajoz | Paola | 548 | 1.626 | 134 |
| Sevilla | Paola | 1,547 | 1.526 | 127 |
| Huelva | Paola | 395 | 1.455 | 120 |
| Ceuta | Paola | 54 | 1.304 | 175 |
| Granada | Paola | 592 | 1.231 | 146 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Paola against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.