Poulain
surname · Latin script
Meaning: foal (young horse)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pulɛ̃/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Poulain is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium1 in 19K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 183K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 295 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈17,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
foal (young horse)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Poulain 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #168 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 4K | 2.3K | Poulain | 295 |
| BE Belgium | — | 624 | 1 in 19K | 625 | Poulain | 52 |
| US United States | — | 135 | 1 in 2.5M | 141 | Poulain | 103 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 584K | — | Poulain | 16 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈91 est. | ≈1 in 412K | — | Poulain | 36 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 71 | 1 in 243K | 71 | Poulain | 9 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 46 | 1 in 183K | 46 | Poulain | 8 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈4 est. | ≈1 in 351K | listed | — | 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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Statbel — Noms de famille (family names); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Poulain 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.
In French, de l’ancien français poulain ‘petit d’un animal’, surnom lié à la jeunesse ou la vivacité.
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
In nrm, foal
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)
- Victor-Auguste Poulainb. 1825FRFrench chocolatier (1825–1918)
- Jeanne-Louise Poulain d'Andecyb. 1857FR1857
- Bernard Dhéranb. 1926FRnot in their usual nameFrench actor (1926-2013)
- Gaston Poulainb. 1927FRFrench Catholic priest (1927–2015)
- Hervé Poulainb. 1940FRFrench racing driver
- Michel Poulainb. 1947BEBelgian scientist
- Hugues Poulainb. 1953FRFrench cinematographer
- Marjolaine Poulainb. 1966FRFrench actress
- Raphaël Poulainb. 1980FRFrench rugby union player
- Benoît Poulainb. 1987FRFrench footballer
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 25 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 2.9K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 2.9K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 2.6K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 2.5K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 2.3K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 2.3K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 2.2K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 2.1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 1.7K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 1.5K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1891 | 1.1K | — |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Noms de famille (family names) | — | 625 | #2,363 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- 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 Poulain mean, and where does it come from?
- foal (young horse) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Poulain?
- A machine transcription gives /pulɛ̃/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Poulain have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 17 thousand people named Poulain in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled poulain.
- How common is the name Poulain?
- In Belgium, the national register counted 624 people named Poulain in 2008, about 1 in 19 thousand residents.
- How common is Poulain compared with other names?
- In France, Poulain is the 168th most common surname of 1,200,812 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Poulain?
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/poulainThe 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, “Poulain” — the 168th most common surname in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.