Paula — #751 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Paula

The Social Security Administration has registered 280,537 babies named Paula between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Paula currently holds the #751 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1963, when 10,151 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Paula performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 84,869 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Paula shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Texas, which accounts for 23,869 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and New York. In total, SSA state-level files list Paula in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Paula in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 280,537 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.