Pâu

given name · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Pâu is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Inherited from Old Catalan pau, from Latin pācem, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-. Compare Occitan patz, French paix, Spanish paz.

rarermore common
  • BEBelgium1 in 6.2Kas Paulus(measured from records)
  • NANamibia≈1 in 12K
  • GYGuyana1 in 363as Paul

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 Pâu 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.

United States (measured from records)

78,256 named Paul, 2010

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
208 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)

Namibia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

PaulusLatin(measured from records)
ΠαουGreek(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Paulus in US United States, BE Belgium, CH Switzerland.

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)

Derivation of Pâu: each step is the form the one above it came from.
Pâu
  1. Old Catalanpau(measured from records)
  2. Latinpācem(measured from records)
  3. Proto-Indo-European*peh₂ǵ-(measured from records)

Inherited from Old Catalan pau, from Latin pācem, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-. Compare Occitan patz, French paix, Spanish paz.

Sources 5

  • Dizionario dei cognomi italiani
  • A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese
  • Wiktionary
  • Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
  • Nordic Names

Attested across 24 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Pâu 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.

Where Pâu is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—78,256as Paul1 in 4.3K906KPaulus133
IN India—21,842as Paul1 in 61K22K—13
PL Poland—2,290as Paul1 in 17K2.5K——
BR Brazil—2,116as Paulus1 in 100K2.1K—1
GY Guyana—2,066as Paul1 in 3632.1K——
BE Belgium#3901,902as Paulus1 in 6.2K1.9KPaulus59
CH Switzerland—797as Paul1 in 11K797Paulus23
NA Namibia—≈210 est.≈1 in 12K38—3

78,256 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010, counting the spelling paul. 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; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); ECN Government Gazette 8791 — 2025 local authority candidates. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Pâu is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Swedish name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, Iceland

    Languages: Swedish, Icelandic

    Also written Pau, Pâû

  • a separate name11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Brazil, India, Spain

    Also written Pau, Pàu, Päû, Pấu, Påu

  • English given name18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Pau, Paü, Pau', Päû, Päu

  • French given name13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea

    Also written Pau, Pau', Paù, Päu, Paū

1 further group record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Pâu under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Pâu mean, and where does it come from?
Inherited from Old Catalan pau, from Latin pācem, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-. Compare Occitan patz, French paix, Spanish paz. Recorded by Dizionario dei cognomi italiani and A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese and 3 other sources.
Is Pâu a male or female name?
Pâu 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.
In which country does Pâu have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 78 thousand people named Paul, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Pâu?
In the United States, the national register counted 78,256 people named Paul in 2010, about 1 in 4.3 thousand residents.
How common is Pâu compared with other names?
In Belgium, Pâu is the 390th most common surname of 246,397 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Pâu?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/p%C3%A2u

The 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, “Pâu” — the 390th most common surname in Belgium. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Pâu parses inside a full name →