Pauli
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Pauli is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In English, recorded as ‘son of Paul’, a humanistic name using the Latin possessive form, originating in Germany and Sweden.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 5.7K(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 10K
- ATAustria≈1 in 28K
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
- 86 (measured from records)
- 1 in 5.7K (inferred from the name graph)
≈7,900 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
‘son of Paul’, a humanistic name using the Latin possessive form, originating in Germany and Sweden.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
How Pauli is read(measured from records)
Pauli is one spelling over 4 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.
- English31%
‘son of Paul’, a humanistic name using the Latin possessive form, originating in Germany and Sweden.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
- German24%
Patronymischer Familienname im lat. Genitiv auf -i zu Paulus; zeigt die Genitiv-/Patronymikbildung. Bearer count: 3291.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Patronym zu lat. Rufname Paulus < lat. paullus „klein“; lat. Genitivform. Bearer counts: Pauli 3291, Paul(l)y 2127+1.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
- Portuguese18%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pauli in Portuguese.
- Spanish12%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pauli 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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Pauli 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 | ≈7,900 est. | ≈1 in 10K | listed | — | — |
| BR Brazil | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 41K | 2K | — | — |
| US United States | 2,104 | 1 in 158K | 2.1K | Pauli | 65 |
| CH Switzerland | 1,474 | 1 in 5.7K | 1.5K | Pauli | 6 |
| TZ Tanzania | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Pauli | 5 |
| AT Austria | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 28K | 19 | — | — |
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 — Surname Frequency 2010; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); the dfa-band-3 register. 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)
Pauli is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Pauli är en finsk form av Paulus (→ Paul) och även genitiv av samma namn. I Finland är namnet belagt som släktnamnselement på 1700-talet. Som förnamn användes namnet även i Sverige, särskilt Skåne, under 1800-talet. I äldre almanackor benämndes 25 januari Pauli omvändelse vilket kan ha bidragit till namnformens spridning.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Italian, forma arcaica e mais latina de Paoli
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Russian, taken over in Latin genitive form
as a nameRussian Surnames
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)
- Reinhold Paulib. 1823DEGerman historian specializing in the history of England (1823-1882)
- Georg Paulib. 1855SESwedish painter (1855-1935)
- Hanna Hirsch-Paulib. 1864SESwedish painter (1864-1940)
- Gustav Paulib. 1866DEGerman art historian (1866–1938)
- Wolfgang Joseph Paulib. 1869ATAustrian chemist and biochemist (1869-1955)
- Bertha Paulib. 1878ATAustrian journalist (1878-1927)
- Wolfgang Paulib. 1900ATphysicist, Nobel prize winner (1900–1958)
- Hertha Paulib. 1906ATAustrian journalist, author and actress
- Gunter Paulib. 1956BEbusinessman, pedagogue, pioneer
- Gabriele Paulib. 1957DEGerman politician
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 63 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.1K | #14,248 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.8K | #15,269 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.6K | #16,875 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 1.5K | #718 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 3 | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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)
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 Pauli mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘son of Paul’, a humanistic name using the Latin possessive form, originating in Germany and Sweden. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Pauli?
- In the etymology graph, Pal, Pasha and Paulus are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Pauli have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 7.9 thousand people named Pauli in Germany, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Pauli most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Pauli is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 5.7 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Pauli?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,104 people named Pauli in 2010, about 1 in 158 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Pauli?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/pauliThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Pauli”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.