Ursula
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in German: from Latin ursa 'she-bear'; source of Tuturschel
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/uːɐzʊla/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ursula is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 76th most common given name.
- DEGermany≈1 in 380(inferred from the name graph)
- CHSwitzerland≈1 in 903
- ATAustria≈1 in 1K
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 389 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 380 (inferred from the name graph)
≈210,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Diminutive of Latin ursa, ‘she-bear’; popular in Ireland.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
How Ursula is read(measured from records)
Ursula is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- German44%
from Latin ursa 'she-bear'; source of Tuturschel
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
a female given name, very popular in German-speaking countries from the 1930s to the 1960s
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
weibl. Vom. lateinischen Ursprungs (Verkleinerung von lat. ursa »Bärin«, also »kleine Bärin«). Zur Verbreitung des Vor namens im Mittelalter trug vor allem die
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- English29%
Diminutive of Latin ursa, ‘she-bear’; popular in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
- Spanish16%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Ursula in Spanish.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Ursula, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ursula 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #76 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 380 | — | Ursula | 227 |
| US United States | — | 17,672 | 1 in 19K | 18K | Ursula | 389 |
| ZA South Africa | #786 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | Ursula | 67 |
| PE Peru | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Ursula | 44 |
| CH Switzerland | #53 | ≈9,300 est. | ≈1 in 903 | — | Ursula | 126 |
| AT Austria | #156 | ≈8,600 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 756 | Ursula | 128 |
| FI Finland | — | 1,434 | 1 in 3.9K | 1.9K | Ursula | 18 |
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; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Ursula is also recorded in 2 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 latina; diminutivo femminile di Orso, legata alla leggenda di S. Orsola.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Swedish, Ursula är ett latinskt namn, en diminutivform till ursus ’björn’. I både den rikssvenska och finlandssvenska almanackan 21 oktober, till minne av en medeltida martyr, som enligt legenden ska ha fallit offer för hunnerna i Köln tillsammans med 11 000 jungfrur.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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)
- Ursulab. 400GBFrankish saint
- Ruth Wernerb. 1907DEnot in their usual nameGerman spy (1907-2000)
- Ursula Franklinb. 1921CACanadian metallurgist, research physicist, author, and educator (1921–2016)
- Ursula Haverbeckb. 1928DEGerman Holocaust denier
- Ursula K. Le Guinb. 1929USAmerican fantasy and science fiction author (1929–2018)
- Ursula Andressb. 1936CHSwiss actress
- Maizie Williamsb. 1951GBnot in their usual nameBritish model and singer
- Ursula von der Leyenb. 1958DEPresident of the European Commission since 2019
- Ursula Kellerb. 1959CHSwiss laser physicist and university teacher (born 1959)
- Ursula Karvenb. 1964DEGerman actress and author
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 101 sources across 56 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 18K | #1,726 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 1.9K | #568 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 1.4K | — |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2023 | 756 | #1,838 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 29 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 22 | #1,726 |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name 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 are other forms of the name Ursula?
- In the etymology graph, Urszula, Ula and Orsolya are forms of the same name in other languages; Uschi and Ursel are recorded short or pet forms.
- What does the name Ursula mean?
- In German, from Latin ursa 'she-bear'; source of Tuturschel
- Where does the name Ursula come from?
- Diminutive of Latin ursa, ‘she-bear’; popular in Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
- Is Ursula a male or female name?
- Ursula 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.
- How do you pronounce Ursula?
- A machine transcription gives /uːɐzʊla/ (IPA) for German.
- In which country does Ursula have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 211 thousand people named Ursula in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ursula.
- How common is the name Ursula?
- In the United States, the national register counted 17,672 people named Ursula in 2020, about 1 in 19 thousand residents.
- How common is Ursula compared with other names?
- In Germany, Ursula is the 76th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ursula?
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/ursulaThe 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, “Ursula” — the 76th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.