Petula — girls' name

What the Data Says About Petula

The Social Security Administration has registered 179 babies named Petula between 1965 and 1977, spanning 13 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Petula currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 1977. The name reached its historical peak in 1968, when 39 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Petula performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 117 births during that ten-year window. Across the 2 decades of recorded activity, Petula shows notable generational variation in parental adoption. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 6 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by . In total, SSA state-level files list Petula in 1 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Petula 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 179 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.