Pálka
surname · Latin script
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 3 countries · latest register: JÚĽŠ SAV, 1995
/paːlka/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Pálka is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Poland than in any other country. Recorded meaning: nickname applied either to a thin, stiff person, or to one renowned for his use of the truncheon. Habitation name: Palczynski.
- PLPoland1 in 12K(measured from records)
- SKSlovakia1 in 20K
- CZCzechia1 in 23K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Poland (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 82 (measured from records)
- 1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)
3,187 people, 2026
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Poland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Palka in PL Poland, US United States, SK Slovakia and 2 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)- LLPalladianusfundus(measured from records)
- GkPal¬(measured from records)
nickname applied either to a thin, stiff person, or to one renowned for his use of the truncheon. Habitation name: Palczynski. Palleja Catalan: habitation name from a place in the prov¬ ince of Barcelona, so called from LL Palladianus (fundus) estate of Palladius, a personal name derived from Gk Pal¬ las, gen. Pallados, an epithet of the goddess Athene (of unknown origin, probably originally the name of a distinct but obscure goddess).
Cited for this meaning 3
- A dictionary of surnames
- Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
- Nordic Names
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Pálka counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | #587 | 3,187 | 1 in 12K | 1.6K | Palka | 82 |
| US United States | — | 1,190 | 1 in 280K | 1.2K | Palka | 82 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 458 | 1 in 23K | 458 | Pálka | 28 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 192K | 52 | Palka | 44 |
| FR France | — | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 215K | 46 | Palka | 2 |
| SK Slovakia | — | 271 | 1 in 20K | 271 | Palka | 27 |
| NO Norway | — | 44 | 1 in 124K | 44 | — | 6 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 27 | 1 in 78K | 27 | — | 1 |
3,187 people counted by dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames), 2026. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; MVČR — living population register 2017; JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Dušan Pálkab. 1909SKSlovak composer
- Dušan Pálkab. 1942CZCzech photographer, humorist and cartoonist (1942-2011)
- Petr Pálkab. 1947CZCzech soccer coach
- Irena Bartoňová Pálkováb. 1968CZnot in their usual nameCzech politician
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)6 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 458 | #3,352 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 458 | #3,098 |
| SK Slovakia | JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census) | 1995 | 271 | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Pálka mean, and where does it come from?
- nickname applied either to a thin, stiff person, or to one renowned for his use of the truncheon. Habitation name: Palczynski. Recorded by A dictionary of surnames and Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames) and 1 other source.
- How do you pronounce Pálka?
- A machine transcription gives /paːlka/ (IPA) for Czech.
- In which country does Pálka have the most bearers?
- In Poland, the national register counted about 3.2 thousand people named Pálka, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled palka.
- Where is Pálka most common?
- Pálka is densest in Poland, where the national register counts about 1 in 12 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Pálka?
- In Poland, the national register counted 3,187 people named Pálka in 2026, about 1 in 12 thousand residents.
- How common is Pálka compared with other names?
- In Poland, Pálka is the 587th most common surname of 240,840 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Pálka?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/p%C3%A1lkaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Pálka” — the 587th most common surname in Poland. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.