Kola

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Kola is a surname 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. Recorded meaning: A tree, genus Cola, bearing large brown seeds ("nuts") that are the source of cola extract.

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 Kola 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)

A tree, genus Cola, bearing large brown seeds ("nuts") that are the source of cola extract.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kola 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 Kola 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)

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

  • English surname16 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, United States, India, South Africa

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Köla, Kólá, Kóla, Koela, Kôlâ

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Kọ́lá, Kolá

  • Turkish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Nigeria, India, United States

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written Kolã

  • Albanian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Albania, Italy, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Kòlà

  • Finnish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, India, United States, Italy

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Kõla, Kuola

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Belgium, Togo, United States

    Also written Kölä, Kolą, Kôla, Kolā

54 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)

Kola 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.

  • hog; embrace; a weapon.

    as a nameThe Penguin book of Hindu names for boys

  • Snail.

    as a nameThe African book of names

  • In lua, used with maluvu to mean to be drunk, be intoxicated.

    as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language

  • In umb, be great; strong, solid, firm ; be unfortunate (too bad). *jtola, v. s., be wrong; be sacred. *Kolisd) v. a., intensify

    as a wordVocabulary of the Umbundu Language

  • In men, v., to utter, to speak. Used with nde, as inde golaa. Kolani, plu. clothes

    as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language

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)

1400160018002000Barbara Kola, b. 1450József Kola, b. 1900Anja Kola, b. 1929Andrzej Kola, b. 1940Agustin Kola, b. 1959Jukka Kola, b. 1960Caroline Kola, b. 1966Rodgers Kola, b. 1989Bahadir Khan Kola, b. 1995

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 43 sources across 23 countries.

Official registers attesting Kola
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.1K#24,280
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010611#36,585
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000337#56,687
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020228#28,490
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—102#7,084
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202087#28,490
CZ CzechiaMVČR — living population register 2017—23#49,140
CZ CzechiaKdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end)—23#14,664
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199120—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—16#28,584
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—12#32,654
FR FranceDictionary of French Prénoms (Benoist, 2009)———

Reference works 5

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 Kola mean, and where does it come from?
A tree, genus Cola, bearing large brown seeds ("nuts") that are the source of cola extract. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Kola 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 Kola most common?
No national register we hold counts the spelling Kola 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 Kola?
In Brazil, the national register counted 126,362 people named Clara in 2022, about 1 in 1.7 thousand residents.
How common is Kola compared with other names?
In Brazil, Kola is the 156th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kola?

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

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

See how Kola parses inside a full name →