Pavla

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Paula in US United States, ES Spain, PL Poland and 10 more, Paola in EC Ecuador, IT Italy and Павла in RU Russia, UA Ukraine.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Pavla is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Italian given name111 records spelled Pavla2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Italy, United States

  Also written Pavlã

38 further groups 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.

Other recorded senses●

Pavla is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In Russian, "little." Fem of Pavel.

  as a word·A Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)

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.

Over time●

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Paula Modersohn-Beckerb. 1876DEnot in their usual nameGerman expressionist painter (1876–1907)
• Paula von Preradovićb. 1887ATnot in their usual nameAustrian writer, poet (1887-1951)
• Paula Hitlerb. 1896ATnot in their usual nameyounger sister of Adolf Hitler (1896–1960)
• Eva Braunb. 1912DEnot in their usual namephotographer, longtime companion and later wife of Adolf Hitler (1912–1945)
• Paula Regob. 1935PTnot in their usual namePortuguese-British visual artist (1935-2022)
• Paula Abdulb. 1962USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer, dancer, choreographer, actress, and television personality
• Paula Hawkinsb. 1972GBnot in their usual nameBritish writer
• Paula Pattonb. 1975USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1975)
• Paula Selingb. 1978ROnot in their usual nameRomanian singer, celebrity
• Paula Fernandesb. 1984BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian singer-songwriter

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).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 94 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Pavla?

We estimate roughly 831 thousand people bear Pavla (counting its spellings and scripts) across 17 countries in our records.

In which country does Pavla have the most bearers?

We estimate about 256 thousand people bear Pavla in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled paula.

Where is Pavla most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Pavla is densest in the Czechia — about 1 in 128 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.

How common is Pavla compared with other names?

In the Czechia, Pavla is the 61st most common given name of 28,899 given names recorded there.

Is Pavla a male or female name?

Pavla 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.