Viola
Viola reached its high-water mark in 1918 at number 59, and has been recorded 133,427 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 1,013th. About 21,000 Violas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 71.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Viola boys named Viola
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 133,427
- Estimated living today
- 21,000
- Median age today
- 71
- Peak year
- 1918
- Best rank
- 59th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,013th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 132,993 / 434
How old the living Violas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 133,427 babies given the name since 1880, about 21,000 are alive — 16 in every hundred. Roughly 3,400 of them are children and 13,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1954 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 Latin
From Latin viola (“violet”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Violas
- Viola Davis (born 1965)American actress and producer
- Viola Amherd (born 1962)Swiss politician
- Viola (born 1969)Brazilian footballer
- Viola Dana (1897–1987)actress
- Viola Desmond (1914–1965)Canadian activist
- Viola Myers (1927–1993)athletics competitor
- Viola Bauer (born 1976)German cross-country skier
- Viola Calligaris (born 1996)association football player
People named Viola with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Viola is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Viola is most concentrated in North Dakota (3.8×), South Dakota (3.5×), New Mexico (2.6×), South Carolina (2.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1918
The most popular girls’ names the year Viola peaked:
Viola elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy girls | Viola | 38,945 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Viola | 872 | 170th |
| England and Wales girls | Viola | 608 | 815th |
| Norway girls | Viola | 347 | 254th |
| Denmark girls | Viola | 145 | 50th |
| France girls | Viola | 65 | 3,473rd |
| Belgium girls | Viola | 64 | 1,000th |
| Ireland girls | Viola | 17 | 768th |
| Poland girls | Viola | 14 birth registrations | 531st |
| Scotland girls | Viola | 6 | 502nd |
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.
Viola: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Viola | 637 | 0.051% | 163rd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Viola | 29 | 0.007% | 335th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Viola | 205 | 0.314% | 3rd |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Viola | 1 | 0.027% | 7th |
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, Viola is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.31% of children were given it – 196 of them.
Viola: rank by region
In 2023, Viola was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Viola | 749 | 6 |
In 2024, Viola was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Viola | 6 | 3 |
In 2014, with the country taken in 5 parts rather than 21, Viola appears in the lists for Centro (9th).
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.
Viola by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 23 | 275th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Viola 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 | Viola | 3,481 | 8,123 |
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 Viola lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 236 women called Viola 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Viola | 27 | 0.049 | 1,576 |
| Palmas, Las | Viola | 25 | 0.042 | 1,926 |
| Balears, Illes | Viola | 20 | 0.032 | 1,778 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Viola | 17 | 0.017 | 2,838 |
| Barcelona | Viola | 50 | 0.016 | 2,563 |
| Valencia/València | Viola | 17 | 0.012 | 3,060 |
Listed in 8 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 44 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Viola 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.