Petronella
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A female given name from Latin, rare in English after Middle Ages
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˌpɛtɹoʊˈnɛɫə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Petronella is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country. In Zambia it is the 39th most common given name.
- NLNetherlands1 in 81(measured from records)
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 2.7K
- ZMZambia≈1 in 7K
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.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- Sources
- 161 (measured from records)
- 1 in 81 (inferred from the name graph)
214,096 people
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A female given name from Latin, rare in English after Middle Ages.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Petronella 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | #554 | 214,096 | 1 in 81 | 208K | Petronella | 70 |
| ZA South Africa | #307 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Petronella | 51 |
| ZW Zimbabwe | — | ≈3,900 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | — | Petronella | 14 |
| ZM Zambia | #39 | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 7K | — | Petronella | 20 |
| SE Sweden | — | 2,164 | 1 in 4.7K | 2.2K | Petronella | 30 |
214,096 people counted by Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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: Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Petronella 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 Swedish, Petronella är en latinsk diminutivform av Petronia, som är en femininform till släktnamnet Petronius (av ovisst ursprung). Kortformen Nella används också i Sverige. I den rikssvenska almanackan 31 maj, till minne av en martyr som enligt traditionen var dotter till aposteln Petrus.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Italian, de Petrone com sufixo feminino singular -ella.
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In German, ) Petronilla: weibl. Vom. zu lat. Petronilla, einer Weiterbildung von dem
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Swedish, a female given name of Latin origin. Variant: Pernilla
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latvian, Sievietes vārds
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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)
- Puck Overslootb. 1914NLnot in their usual nameswimmer (1914-2009)
- Johanna Petronella Vorster Vosloob. 1934ZAmother of Arnold Vosloo
- Kitty Courboisb. 1937NLnot in their usual nameDutch actress (1937-2017)
- Petronella Barkerb. 1942GBBritish actress
- Bettine Vriesekoopb. 1961NLnot in their usual nameDutch table tennis player
- Petronella Barkerb. 1965NOBritish-born Norwegian actress
- Petronella Wyattb. 1969GBEnglish writer
- Petronella Ekrothb. 1989SESwedish association football player
- Petronella Tshumab. 1990ZASouth African actress
- Karoline Schaub. 1999NOnot in their usual nameNorwegian actress
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 54 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 76 | #23,415 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 4 | #57,140 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name 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
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 Petronella mean, and where does it come from?
- A female given name from Latin, rare in English after Middle Ages. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Petronella?
- A machine transcription gives /ˌpɛtɹoʊˈnɛɫə/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Petronella a male or female name?
- Petronella 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.
- What are other forms of the name Petronella?
- In the etymology graph, Petra, Nela and Pernille are forms of the same name in other languages; Pernilla is a recorded short or pet form.
- In which country does Petronella have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 214 thousand people named Petronella, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled petronella.
- Where is Petronella most common?
- Petronella is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 81 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Petronella?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 214,096 people named Petronella, about 1 in 81 residents.
- How common is Petronella compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Petronella is the 554th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Petronella?
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/petronellaThe 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, “Petronella” — the 554th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.