Paling
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Paling is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country. Recorded meaning: present participle and gerund of pale.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 109K(inferred from the name graph)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 198K
- USUnited States1 in 1.7M
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.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 114 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈610 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Réunion, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
present participle and gerund of pale
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Paling 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈610 est. | ≈1 in 109K | 1.1K | Paling | 110 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈550 est. | ≈1 in 198K | — | Paling | 22 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 302 | 1 in 57K | 302 | Paling | 16 |
| US United States | — | 196 | 1 in 1.7M | 236 | Paling | 114 |
| RE Réunion | #232 | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 5.1K | — | Paling | 1 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 117K | 11 | Paling | 3 |
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: Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed). 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)
Paling 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 German, from sl. palndk 'burner'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Filipino, turn, inclination of the head
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In mqs, very much
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Malay, majority
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Indonesian, most
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)
- Jan Hendrik Palingb. 1796NLDutch musician and piano builder (1796-1879)
- William Henry Palingb. 1825NL(1825-1895) musician, merchant and philanthropist
- Anton Adriaan Palingb. 1835NLDutch piano builder
- Johannes Jacobus Palingb. 1844NLDutch painter, 1844-1892
- Wilfred Palingb. 1883GBBritish politician (1883-1971)
- William Palingb. 1892GBBritish politician (1892-1992)
- Richard Palingb. 1901DEGerman painter (1901-1955)
- Kees Palingb. 1954NLDutch writer
- Chris Palingb. 1956GBBritish writer
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 16 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 1.1K | #6,126 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 302 | #6,830 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 236 | #85,336 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 224 | #79,115 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 196 | #93,513 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 11 | #9,781 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 10 | #10,905 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname 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 does the name Paling mean, and where does it come from?
- present participle and gerund of pale Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Paling have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 605 people named Paling in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled paling.
- How common is the name Paling?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 302 people named Paling in 2007, about 1 in 57 thousand residents.
- How common is Paling compared with other names?
- In Réunion, Paling is the 232nd most common surname of 3,012 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Paling?
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/palingThe 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, “Paling” — the 232nd most common surname in Réunion. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.