Kala

loc · Latin script

Meaning: Hindu name from Sanskrit kala with several meanings, including ‘art’, ‘skill’, and ‘a part of division of something’

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Kala is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country. In Romania it is the 95th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • CZCzechia1 in 135as Klára(measured from records)
  • HUHungary1 in 303as Klára
  • PYParaguay≈1 in 680as Clara

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kala itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Brazil (measured from records)

126,362 named Clara, 2022

#765 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

8 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
385 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 135 (inferred from the name graph)

Czechia, as Klára

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ClaraLatin(measured from records)
КлараCyrillic(measured from records)
קלרהHebrew(measured from records)
โขลาThai(measured from records)
კლარაGeorgian(measured from records)
ΚλάραGreek(measured from records)
칼라Hangul(measured from records)
కోలTelugu(measured from records)

5 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Clara in BR Brazil, US United States, FR France and 1 more, Klara in CZ Czechia, HU Hungary, SE Sweden, Kali in ID Indonesia and קלרה in RO Romania.

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)

Hindu name from Sanskrit kala with several meanings, including ‘art’, ‘skill’, and ‘a part of division of something’.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kala 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.

Where Kala is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil#156126,362as Clara1 in 1.7K126KClara197
US United States—109,248as Clara1 in 3K109KClara385
CZ Czechia#18879,200as Klára1 in 13579KKlara125
FR France—≈72,000 est.≈1 in 938101KClara7
ID Indonesia—≈58,000 est.≈1 in 4.6KlistedKali65
HU Hungary#26332,293as Klára1 in 30332KKlara110
RO Romania#95≈26,000 est.≈1 in 807—קלרה53
SE Sweden—16,804as Klara1 in 60717KKlara42
PY Paraguay#130≈11,000 est.≈1 in 680—Clara39
DK Denmark—10,060as Clara1 in 58310K—3

126,362 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); MVČR — living population register 2017; Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kala is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Kālā, Kåla, Kalā, Kâla

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Qala

  • Hindi given name136 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Netherlands, Pakistan

    Languages: Hindi, Bangla, English

    Also written Kalu, Kullu, Kool, Kul, কালু

  • Czech surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia

    Also written Kála, Kälå, Kálá

  • French name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France

    Also written Kälá, Kàlà, Kâlā, Kåla, Kãlã

  • Polish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland

    Also written Kala', ̧kala, ̨kala

55 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Kala 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.

  • time; fate; dark blue; black; death; the Supreme Spirit as a destroyer; the Indian cuckoo.

    as a nameThe Penguin book of Hindu names for boys

  • name for Siva (god of destruction); black, time

    as a nameA Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India

  • (Hin) name for the god Shiva; black, time

    as a nameA Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India

  • » Annapiirna (N); Bagala (N); Bhavani (N);

    as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names

  • Aghora (९); Balarama (N); Batukabhairava

    as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit 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)

19201940196019802000Kulno Kala, b. 1936Risto Kala, b. 1941Radosław Kala, b. 1946Tiit Kala, b. 1954Aivar Kala, b. 1957Miloslav Kala, b. 1963Kala Ramnath, b. 1967Tiina Kala, b. 1967Veikko Kala, b. 1981Hüseyin Kala, b. 1987

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 84 sources across 42 countries.

Official registers attesting Kala
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20207.3K#2,976
CZ CzechiaMVČR — living population register 2017—893#1,541
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020787#31,504
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010577#38,389
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000467#43,546
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020253#2,976
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—62#10,546
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202254—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—47#63,204
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—33#139,729
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199127—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—27#4,100

Reference works 7

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

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 Kala mean, and where does it come from?
Hindu name from Sanskrit kala with several meanings, including ‘art’, ‘skill’, and ‘a part of division of something’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
In which country does Kala have the most bearers?
In Brazil, the national register counted about 126 thousand people named Clara, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Kala most common?
No national register we hold counts the spelling Kala itself. The densest figure for its family of spellings is Czechia's: the national register counts about 1 in 135 people named Klára.
How common is the name Kala?
In Brazil, the national register counted 126,362 people named Clara in 2022, about 1 in 1.7 thousand residents.
How common is Kala compared with other names?
In Brazil, Kala is the 156th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kala?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kala

The 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, “Kala” — the 156th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kala parses inside a full name →