Colette
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Colette is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Diminutive of Nicole, feminine of Nicolas, from Greek Nikolaos 'victory of the people'.
- FRFrance≈1 in 1.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 3.6K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7.9K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 317 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈43,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Diminutive of Nicole, feminine of Nicolas, from Greek Nikolaos 'victory of the people'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Colette 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #241 | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | 175K | Colette | 297 |
| US United States | — | 21,691 | 1 in 15K | 22K | Colette | 317 |
| CM Cameroon | #235 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Colette | 22 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #736 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.4K | — | Colette | 16 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈8,300 est. | ≈1 in 7.9K | 4 | Colette | 108 |
| BE Belgium | #390 | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | 253 | Colette | 78 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Colette | 37 |
| GY Guyana | — | 108 | 1 in 6.9K | 108 | — | — |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Colette is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, French diminutive of Nicole, from Greek Nikolaos meaning 'victory of the people'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Diminutive/variant of Nicole, from Greek nikē + laos, 'victory of the people'.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Diminutive of Nicole/Nicolas, from Greek Nikolaos 'victory of the people'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Feminine diminutive of Nicolas/Colin; Greek « victory of the people ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Feminine diminutive of Nicholas; sometimes used in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Colette Peignotb. 1903FRFrench writer (1903-1938)
- Colette Audryb. 1906FRFrench novelist, screenwriter, and critic (1906-1990)
- Colette Brossetb. 1922FRFrench actress (1922-2007)
- Colette Renardb. 1924FRFrench actress (1924-2010)
- Colette Marchandb. 1925FRFrench dancer and actress (1925-2015)
- Stéphane Audranb. 1932FRnot in their usual nameFrench actress (1932–2018)
- Colette Bessonb. 1946FRFrench sprinter
- Pascale Ogierb. 1958FRnot in their usual nameFrench actress (1958-1984)
- Daphné Bürkib. 1980FRnot in their usual nameFrench actress
- Colette HillerUSAmerican actress
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 85 sources across 46 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 175K | #364 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 22K | #1,523 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 962 | — |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 108 | #486 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2024 | 60 | #143 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 13 | #1,523 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1928 | 10 | #445 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2023 | 4 | #630 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- Is Colette a male or female name?
- Colette is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Colette?
- In the etymology graph, Nicole, Lina and Nicola are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Nicolette and Nicoline.
- What does the name Colette mean, and where does it come from?
- Diminutive of Nicole, feminine of Nicolas, from Greek Nikolaos 'victory of the people'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- In which country does Colette have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 43 thousand people named Colette in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled colette.
- How common is the name Colette?
- In the United States, the national register counted 21,691 people named Colette in 2020, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Colette compared with other names?
- In France, Colette is the 241st most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Colette?
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/coletteThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Colette” — the 241st most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.