Paulo

loc · Latin script

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

Paulo is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Czechia it is the 6th most common given name. Recorded meaning: small.

rarermore common
  • BRBrazil1 in 159(measured from records)
  • CZCzechia1 in 27as Pavel
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 110as Paul

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 Paulo 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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈6,000,000 named Paul, est.

#29 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

8 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
691 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 159 (inferred from the name graph)

Brazil

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

PaulLatin(measured from records)
ПавелCyrillic(measured from records)
바울Hangul(measured from records)
ՊավելArmenian(measured from records)
პავლეGeorgian(measured from records)
โพเวลThai(measured from records)
ΠαβελGreek(measured from records)
פאלHebrew(measured from records)

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Paul in US United States, GB United Kingdom, NZ New Zealand and 1 more, Павел in RU Russia, CN China and Pavel in CZ Czechia.

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)

small

Sources 1

  • Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Paulo 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 Paulo is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈6,000,000 est.≈1 in 231—Павел111
BR Brazil—1,331,6391 in 1591.4MPaulo282
RU Russia#34≈1,100,000 est.≈1 in 132#16Павел283
US United States#22907,225as Paul1 in 367906KPaul691
GB United Kingdom#8≈600,000 est.≈1 in 11070KPaul482
CZ Czechia#6401,994as Pavel1 in 27402KPavel222
IE Ireland#8≈37,000 est.≈1 in 139—Paul231
NZ New Zealand#10≈34,000 est.≈1 in 147—Paul226

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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); MVČR — living population register 2017. 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)

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

  • English name12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, Dutch

    Also written Paul-O, Pauló, Paülo, Päülö, Pàulo

  • French given name22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Brazil

    Also written Paùlo, Paul'O, Paulõ, Päulo, Päülö

  • German name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Austria

    Also written Paŭlo

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Paŭlo, Paǔlo, Paulō

  • Malay name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Brunei

    Also written Pauló

  • Bulgarian given name11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia

    Languages: Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian

    Also written Пауло, Paullo, Păulo

79 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)

Paulo 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 Italian, forma arcaica de Paolo

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

  • In French, Portuguese form of Paul; 'small'.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

  • In German, Patronym zu Paulus. 122 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

  • In Latin, dative/ablative singular of Paulus

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Hawaiian, Paul (biblical character)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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)

19201940196019802000Paulo Freire, b. 1921Paulo Mendes da Rocha, b. 1928Pablo Milanés, b. 1943Paulo Coelho, b. 1947Paulo Bento, b. 1969Paulo Sousa, b. 1970Paulo Ferreira, b. 1979Juan Branco, b. 1989Paulo Dybala, b. 1993Paulo Londra, b. 1998
  • Paulo Freireb. 1921BRBrazilian educator and philosopher (1921–1997)
  • Paulo Mendes da Rochab. 1928BRBrazilian architect (1928–2021)
  • Pablo Milanésb. 1943CUnot in their usual nameCuban musician (1943–2022)
  • Paulo Coelhob. 1947BRBrazilian lyricist and novelist (born 1947)
  • Paulo Bentob. 1969PTPortuguese football manager and former footballer
  • Paulo Sousab. 1970PTPortuguese footballer
  • Paulo Ferreirab. 1979PTPortuguese footballer (born 1979)
  • Juan Brancob. 1989ESnot in their usual nameFrench-Spanish lawyer, writer and political activist (born 1989)
  • Paulo Dybalab. 1993ARArgentine association football player (born 1993)
  • Paulo Londrab. 1998ARArgentinian rapper and singer

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 110 sources across 56 countries.

Official registers attesting Paulo
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—1.4M#29
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes no Brasil API (Census 2010 + 2022)—1.4M#6
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20221.3M—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.3M#11
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)202018K—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202011K#2,310
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—5.4K#11
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.9K#15,238
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.4K#18,312
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.4K#19,469
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)2025110—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202084#2,310

Reference works 8

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 Paulo mean, and where does it come from?
small Recorded by Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,….
In which country does Paulo have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 6.0 million people named Paul in China, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Paulo most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Paulo is densest in Brazil — about 1 in 159 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Paulo?
In Brazil, the national register counted 1,331,639 people named Paulo in 2022, about 1 in 159 residents.
How common is Paulo compared with other names?
In Czechia, Paulo is the 6th most common given name of 16,679 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Paulo?

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

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, “Paulo” — the 6th most common given name in Czechia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Paulo parses inside a full name →