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Name profile

Paula

feminine

88First-name usabilityWorkable with minor friction
Evidence coverageLimited

This reflects the first name on its own. The full-name report scores the complete combination separately.

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Feminine form of the Roman family name Paulus/Paullus, from Latin paulus ("small").

Why it works

  • English speakers will almost certainly pronounce it correctly on the first try
  • spelling is short and predictable — rarely needs repeating

What to know

pronunciation varies somewhat by language — see "How it travels" for the specifics

Popularity

Uncommon — #855 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Meaning and origin

Paula means "Small" or "humble" — feminine form of the Roman family name Paulus/Paullus, from the Latin adjective paulus ("small").

Widely used across many European languages as a direct cognate rather than being tied to one national naming tradition.

Documented origin: Feminine form of the Roman family name Paulus/Paullus, from Latin paulus ("small").

VerifiedDirectly documented by an independent source, with no competing account on file.

How it travels

English and Turkish are shown by default; German is included when it adds a meaningfully different reading.

EnglishPAW-luh (US English) — Multiple (English, German, Spanish, Polish, and other European languages)researched pronunciation
TurkishEnglish tends to reduce unstressed vowels; Turkish pronounces vowels at full value, so the ending may sound crisper to Turkish speakers than to English speakers.deterministic phonetic analysis
GermanEnglish tends to reduce unstressed vowels; German pronounces vowels at full value, so the ending may sound crisper to German speakers than to English speakers.deterministic phonetic analysis

Spelling stability: high — based on letter-pattern analysis, not a documented linguistic fact.

Also documented

English: /ˈpɔl.ə/

German: /ˈpaʊ̯.la/

Polish: /ˈpaw.la/

Popularity without panic

Uncommon — #855 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Still uncommon, but no longer unfamiliar.

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Real-world considerations