Paola
- Pronunciation
- [Pao-la]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Little
- Origin
- Italian
About the Name Paola
Paola is the Italian and Spanish feminine form of Paul, from the Latin family name Paulus, meaning "small" or "humble" — a cognomen that likely began as a physical description in Roman aristocratic families before becoming one of the most influential names in Christian history through Saint Paul the Apostle. The apostle's letters form a cornerstone of New Testament theology, and the spread of his name across Catholic and Protestant Europe ensured that its feminine forms — Paola in Italian and Spanish, Paule in French, Paula in English and German — achieved wide and enduring currency. Paola carries the lyrical quality distinctive of Italian phonetics: the open final vowel, the flowing ao vowel cluster, and the four clean syllables give it a warmth and musicality that distinguish it sharply from the more clipped English form Paula.
Paola appears in the US Social Security top-1000 from 2000 and reached its peak rank of #302 in 2006, driven substantially by the growth of Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. It maintained strong presence for over two decades before gradually narrowing: #957 in 2020, #963 in 2021, and #984 in 2022, the last year it appeared in the top-1000. Over its tracked run, approximately 14,942 babies received the name in top-1000 years. The recorded variant is Polly.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Paola
US Popularity History (2000–2022)
Annual US births named Paola by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2006 with 1,089 girls named Paola (girl rank #302 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2022, ranked #984 for girls (269 US births). That's 682 places below its 2006 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Paola Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Paola the strongest states are Texas, Florida, California.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #546 | 567 |
| 2 | Florida | #576 | 282 |
| 3 | California | #646 | 510 |
| 4 | Maryland | #748 | 22 |
| 5 | Colorado | #803 | 27 |
| 6 | Oklahoma | #812 | 21 |
| 7 | Illinois | #833 | 90 |
| 8 | Arizona | #871 | 54 |
| 9 | Washington | #879 | 22 |
| 10 | Virginia | #887 | 25 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Carolina | #1,185 | 24 |
| 2 | New York | #1,047 | 45 |
| 3 | Virginia | #887 | 25 |
| 4 | Washington | #879 | 22 |
| 5 | Arizona | #871 | 54 |
| 6 | Illinois | #833 | 90 |
| 7 | Oklahoma | #812 | 21 |
| 8 | Colorado | #803 | 27 |
| 9 | Maryland | #748 | 22 |
| 10 | California | #646 | 510 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Paola in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polly | Bitter | Female | Hebrew |
Looking for names like Paola?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Paola to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Paola against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).