Kola
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A tree, genus Cola, bearing large brown seeds ("nuts") that are the source of cola extract
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/koʊlə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
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.
- 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)
- #765 (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 385 (measured from records)
- 1 in 135 (inferred from the name graph)
126,362 named Clara, 2022
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia, as Klára
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | #156 | 126,362as Clara | 1 in 1.7K | 126K | Clara | 197 |
| US United States | — | 109,248as Clara | 1 in 3K | 109K | Clara | 385 |
| CZ Czechia | #188 | 79,200as Klára | 1 in 135 | 79K | Klara | 125 |
| FR France | — | ≈72,000 est. | ≈1 in 938 | 101K | Clara | 7 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈58,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | listed | Kali | 65 |
| HU Hungary | #263 | 32,293as Klára | 1 in 303 | 32K | Klara | 110 |
| RO Romania | #95 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 807 | — | קלרה | 53 |
| SE Sweden | — | 16,804as Klara | 1 in 607 | 17K | Klara | 42 |
| PY Paraguay | #130 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 680 | — | Clara | 39 |
| DK Denmark | — | 10,060as Clara | 1 in 583 | 10K | — | 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 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)
- Barbara Kolab. 1450Polish noble (-1550)
- József Kolab. 1900Hungarian composer and arranger (1900–1967)
- Anja Kolab. 1929FIFinnish film actor (1929-2004)
- Andrzej Kolab. 1940PLPolish historian and archeologist
- Agustin Kolab. 1959ALAlbanian footballer (born 1959)
- Jukka Kolab. 1960FIrector of University of Turku
- Caroline Kolab. 1966KEKenyan athletics competitor
- Rodgers Kolab. 1989ZMZambian footballer
- Bahadir Khan Kolab. 1995TRTurkish badminton player (born 1995)
- Susanna Kolaresearcher
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 43 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.1K | #24,280 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 611 | #36,585 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 337 | #56,687 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 102 | #7,084 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 23 | #49,140 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 23 | #14,664 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 20 | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 16 | #28,584 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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
- 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 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).
- How do you pronounce Kola?
- A machine transcription gives /koʊlə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- 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?
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/kolaThe 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, “Kola” — the 156th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.