Bola
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of a cord
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈboʊɫə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bola is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 115K
- USUnited States1 in 611K
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 219 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈170,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of a cord.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bola 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | #218 | ≈170,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Bola | 86 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 646K | — | Bola | 5 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈910 est. | ≈1 in 293K | listed | — | 2 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈570 est. | ≈1 in 115K | — | Bola | 119 |
| US United States | — | 544 | 1 in 611K | 472 | Bola | 219 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈40 est. | ≈1 in 130K | — | Bola | 22 |
| GA Gabon | — | ≈31 est. | ≈1 in 72K | 1 | — | — |
| LS Lesotho | — | ≈8 est. | ≈1 in 254K | 1 | — | 1 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Lesotho IEC 2022 National Assembly candidate lists; Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative). 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)
Bola 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 lua, to rot, go bad, decay, decompose, be corrupt, be rotten, be foul or spoiled or tainted or putrid, putrefy, be damp or wet or moist or soaked.
as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language
In Portuguese, ball
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese
In Russian, "pain."
as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)
In ifu, word-base conveying the idea of "white" in the Kiangan area, and of "red" in the other areas of Ifugawland
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Indonesian, ball, a solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass
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)
- Bola Igeb. 1930NGNigerian politician (1930–2001)
- Bola Ajibolab. 1934NGNigerian Minister of Jusitice and International Court of Justice judge (1934–2023)
- Bola Balogunb. 1943NGPh.D. University of California, Los Angeles 1975
- Bola Johnsonb. 1947NGNigerian musician (1947–2014)
- Bola Tinubub. 1952NG12th Governor of Lagos (1999–2007) and President of Nigeria since 2023
- Bola Areb. 1954NGNigerian gospel singer and former President of the Gospel Musicians Association of Nigeria.(born on October 1, 1954)
- Bola Akindeleb. 1964NGNigerian businessman and philanthropist
- Bola MosuroNGNigerian journalist and radio broadcaster
- Bolanle FrazerNGnot in their usual nameTV presenter and reporter
- Bola TinubuNGcorporate lawyer who established a free children's helpline in Nigeria
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 36 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 472 | #48,348 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 413 | #50,564 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 297 | #62,961 |
| GA Gabon | Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative) | 2025 | 1 | #94 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- 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 Bola mean, and where does it come from?
- A throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of a cord. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Bola?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈboʊɫə/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Bola a male or female name?
- Bola 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.
- In which country does Bola have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 170 thousand people named Bola in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bola.
- How common is the name Bola?
- In the United States, the national register counted 544 people named Bola in 2020, about 1 in 611 thousand residents.
- How common is Bola compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Bola is the 218th most common given name of 138,191 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Bola?
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/bolaThe 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, “Bola” — the 218th most common given name in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.