Poul
given name · Latin script
Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree
- Denmark (Danmarks Statistik): listed as male
- India (India Names Dataset): listed as male
- United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as male
- Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 25 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈpɒʊ̯l/(recorded in a dictionary) Danish · from Wiktionary
Poul is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Denmark than in any other country, where it is the 34th most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Old French Paul, brought to England by the Normans, itself from Latin Paulus.
- DKDenmark1 in 331(measured from records)
- GLGreenland≈1 in 8.7K
- SESweden1 in 21K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Denmark (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 165 (measured from records)
- 1 in 331 (inferred from the name graph)
17,757 people
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)- Old FrenchPaul(measured from records)
- LatinPaulus(measured from records)
From Old French Paul, brought to England by the Normans, itself from Latin Paulus.
Cited for this meaning 3
- Wiktionary
- Deshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)
- Nordic Names
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Poul 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DK Denmark | #34 | 17,757 | 1 in 331 | 18K | Poul | 165 |
| IN India | — | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 521K | 115 | Poul | 18 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈630 est. | ≈1 in 372K | — | Poul | 8 |
| SE Sweden | — | 495 | 1 in 21K | 495 | Poul | 29 |
| US United States | — | 325 | 1 in 1M | 324 | Poul | 132 |
| NO Norway | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 31K | 306 | Poul | 25 |
| GL Greenland | — | ≈7 est. | ≈1 in 8.7K | 181 | — | 11 |
| FO Faroe Islands | — | ≈2 est. | ≈1 in 23K | 67 | — | 15 |
17,757 people counted by Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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: Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Hagstova Føroya — Given names, living population (PX-Web, 2024). 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)Poul is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In enm, a male given name from Old French
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Haitian Creole, chicken
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Luxembourgish, stake
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Breton, collier de jonc
as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)
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)- Paul Egedeb. 1708NOnot in their usual nameDano-Norwegian theologian
- Poul Martin Møllerb. 1794DKDanish academic and poet (1794–1838)
- Poul Nielsenb. 1891DKDanish footballer (1891-1962)
- Poul Henningsenb. 1894DKDanish architect and author (1894-1967)
- Poul Hartlingb. 1914DKDanish politician and diplomat (1914-2000)
- Poul Andersonb. 1926USAmerican science fiction writer (1926–2001)
- Poul Schlüterb. 1929DKPrime Minister of Denmark from 1982 to 1993
- Poul Nyrup Rasmussenb. 1943DKPrime Minister of Denmark from 1993 to 2001
- Poul Rudersb. 1949DKDanish composer (born 1949)
- Poul Bergb. 1970DKDanish screenwriter
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)50 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 730 | #1,714 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 121 | #141,309 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 115 | #25,945 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 100 | #160,975 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 2 | #75,773 |
| 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
- 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
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 Poul mean, and where does it come from?
- From Old French Paul, brought to England by the Normans, itself from Latin Paulus. Recorded by Wiktionary and Deshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003) and 1 other source.
- What are other forms of the name Poul?
- In the etymology graph, Paul, Pablo and Paolo are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Poul?
- In Danish /ˈpɒʊ̯l/ (Wiktionary).
- Is Poul a male or female name?
- Poul is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: Denmark (Danmarks Statistik): listed as male; India (India Names Dataset): listed as male; United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as male; Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes. We don't publish a percentage split.
- In which country does Poul have the most bearers?
- In Denmark, the national register counted about 18 thousand people named Poul, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled poul.
- Where is Poul most common?
- Poul is densest in Denmark, where the national register counts about 1 in 331 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Poul?
- In Denmark, the national register counted 17,757 people named Poul, about 1 in 331 residents.
- How common is Poul compared with other names?
- In Denmark, Poul is the 34th most common given name of 23,174 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Poul?
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/poulThe 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, “Poul” — the 34th most common given name in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.