Julia
From Latin, with the sense of youthful. More than 300,000 women in Poland carry it and nearly everyone knows one, though it's given to fewer newborns each year now than at its 2000s peak.
Julia Pronunciation
Julia is pronounced YOOL-yah (/ˈjulja/).
What Julia means
Where Julia comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Julia is a Latin name, the feminine of the Roman clan name Julius. The gens Julia traced itself back to Iulus, son of Aeneas, and the root has long been tied to the sense of youthful. Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar, married Pompey, and her death loosened one of the bonds holding the late Republic together.
The name traveled because Rome traveled. Saint Julia of Corsica, a martyr venerated since the early Middle Ages, carried it into the Christian calendar, which is why Poland still keeps her a spring name-day. Shakespeare gave a Julia to Two Gentlemen of Verona before he gave the world Juliet, and Juliette survives now as the French variant many Polish readers recognize.
In a Polish class register the name shortens fast. Julka answers to roll call. Jula is the diminutive a friend uses. The Polish reading holds two senses at once, młoda and promienista, young and radiant. Youthful is the older one, from Latin.
When Julia celebrates name day
Julia appears 9 times in the Polish name day calendar, 5 of them as a main name, the first on 8 April.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Julia
1 in 72 women in Poland is named Julia. 311,209 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #33 among female names.
Julia's popularity over time
3,207 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #16 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000.
Where parents choose Julia
Julia is given fairly evenly across Poland, with no strong regional preference. It leans slightly toward Holy Cross (16% above the national average) and is least common in Pomeranian (14% below).
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Holy Cross
+16%1 in 50 babies
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Subcarpathian
+13%1 in 51 babies
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Podlaskie
+10%1 in 53 babies
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Pomeranian
−14%1 in 67 babies
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Greater Poland
−12%1 in 66 babies
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Warmian-Masurian
−9%1 in 63 babies
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Holy Cross+16% 1,114 born1 in 50 babies+16%
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Subcarpathian+13% 2,352 born1 in 51 babies+13%
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Podlaskie+10% 1,248 born1 in 53 babies+10%
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Lesser Poland+9% 4,286 born1 in 53 babies+9%
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Łódź+9% 2,399 born1 in 53 babies+9%
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Silesian+3% 4,040 born1 in 56 babies+3%
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Opole+2% 814 born1 in 57 babies+2%
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Lublin+1% 1,795 born1 in 57 babies+1%
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Masovian−1% 6,069 born1 in 58 babies−1%
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West Pomeranian−1% 1,440 born1 in 59 babies−1%
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Lower Silesian−4% 2,611 born1 in 60 babies−4%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian−5% 1,804 born1 in 61 babies−5%
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Lubusz−8% 793 born1 in 63 babies−8%
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Warmian-Masurian−9% 1,133 born1 in 63 babies−9%
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Greater Poland−12% 3,284 born1 in 66 babies−12%
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Pomeranian−14% 2,186 born1 in 67 babies−14%
Julia as a middle name
Julia is a first name for 311,209 women in Poland and a middle name for another 86,163, a 78/22 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 33rd, between Halina (86,369) and Iwona (83,745).
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#31 Alicja86,785
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#32 Halina86,369
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#33 Julia86,163
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#34 Iwona83,745
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#35 Agata81,382