Pauline

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Girl · Latin

Pauline

Say it: poh-LEEN

Try it with your surname

Meaning

From Latin Paulina, from paulus 'small'.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

Fashionable in Napoleonic and 19th-century France, and again in the 1980s–90s.

Its wave through time

Fading since the 1900s

In the United States

0246818801900192019401960198020002020Peak 1915per 1,000 babies of that sex
  • 226,890 babies given this name since 1880
  • At its height in 1909, about 1 in 183 girls
  • 52 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
  2. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
  3. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

FrenchGerman

The family of the name

EnglishPaula
ItalianPaolina
GermanPauline

Famous bearers

  • Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Royal and noble genealogies
  • National birth statistics of European countries source
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.