Paul
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: from the male personal name Paul, from Latin Paulus, literally ‘small’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/pɔl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Paul is a given 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.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 110(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 139
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 147
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 Paul 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)
- #29 (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 691 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 110 (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,000,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Павел in RU Russia, CN China, Paulo in BR Brazil 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)
from the male personal name Paul, from Latin Paulus, literally ‘small’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
How Paul is read(measured from records)
Paul is one spelling over 2 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.
- English77%
from the male personal name Paul, from Latin Paulus, literally ‘small’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Latin paulus, ‘little’; Roman name of Saul, one of the foremost early Christians.
as a nameIrish first names
- French5.4%
From Latin Paulus ‘small’; used in the text as a baptismal name turned into patronymic surnames.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
From Latin Paulus ‘small, humble’; saint’s day listed twice (25 Jan., 29 Jun.)
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
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.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Paul 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈6,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 231 | — | Павел | 111 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,331,639as Paulo | 1 in 159 | 1.4M | Paulo | 282 |
| RU Russia | #34 | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 132 | #16 | Павел | 283 |
| US United States | #22 | 907,225 | 1 in 367 | 906K | Paul | 691 |
| GB United Kingdom | #8 | ≈600,000 est. | ≈1 in 110 | 70K | Paul | 482 |
| CZ Czechia | #6 | 401,994as Pavel | 1 in 27 | 402K | Pavel | 222 |
| IE Ireland | #8 | ≈37,000 est. | ≈1 in 139 | — | Paul | 231 |
| NZ New Zealand | #10 | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 147 | — | Paul | 226 |
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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Paul 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.
Paul is a classic name of Latin origin meaning 'small' or 'humble'. It is famously associated with the Apostle Paul, a pivotal figure in early Christianity, known for his intellect, missionary zeal, and profound writings that form a large part of the New Testament. The name carries connotations of wisdom, resilience, and spiritual depth.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Saul is from the Hebrew שָׁאוּל (Sha'ûl), meaning 'asked for' or 'prayed for'. The name Paul is from the Latin surname Paulus, meaning 'small' or 'humble'. It was a common practice for Jews in the Roman Empire to have both a Hebrew and a Greco-Roman name.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
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)
- Paulus Ib. 700ITnot in their usual namepope (700-767)
- Paul IIb. 1417ITpope of the Catholic Church from 1464 to 1471
- Paul Morphyb. 1837USUS chess player (1837–1884)
- Paul Sabatierb. 1854FRFrench chemist (1854–1941)
- Roger Martin du Gardb. 1881FRnot in their usual nameFrench writer (1881–1958)
- Paul Anthony Samuelsonb. 1915USAmerican economist (1915–2009)
- Paul Bergb. 1926USAmerican biochemist, Professor emeritus at Stanford University & Nobel laureate in Chemistry (1926–2023)
- Paul Krugmanb. 1953USAmerican economist (born 1953)
- Paul Kagameb. 1957RWPresident of Rwanda since 2000 (born 1957)
- Paul Pogbab. 1993FRFrench footballer (born 1993)
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 183 sources across 96 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 906K | #31 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 2K | #5,921 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 1.6K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.6K | #6,058 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.3K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.1K | #31 |
Reference works 10
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Paul mean, and where does it come from?
- from the male personal name Paul, from Latin Paulus, literally ‘small’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Paul have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.0 million people named Paul in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled павел.
- Is Paul a male or female name?
- Paul is a male 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.
- What are other forms of the name Paul?
- In the etymology graph, Pablo, Saul and Paolo are forms of the same name in other languages; Paulie is a recorded short or pet form.
- How common is the name Paul?
- In the United States, the national register counted 907,225 people named Paul in 2020, about 1 in 367 residents.
- How common is Paul compared with other names?
- In Czechia, Paul is the 6th most common given name of 16,679 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Paul?
- A machine transcription gives /pɔl/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Paul?
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/paulThe 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, “Paul” — the 6th most common given name in Czechia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.