Carola
A Latin name meaning "free man", though in Poland all 54 people who carry it are women. It stays rare enough that most Poles have never met one, and no girls have been given it in years.
Carola Pronunciation
Carola is pronounced tsah-RO-lah (/t͡saˈrɔla/).
What Carola means
Where Carola comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Carola comes from the Latin Carolus, the form Latin gave to the Germanic name Karl. The meaning underneath is free man, in Polish wolny człowiek, a word once used for a man who answered to no lord. As a feminine form, Carola carried that sense into Italy, Germany, and the Scandinavian north.
The name has real bearers to point to. Carola of Saxony, born 1833, became queen consort and left her name on a Dresden bridge and several hospitals. More than a century later Carola Häggkvist won the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden. The root holds across all three countries.
On a Polish class register Carola looks foreign and reads clearly. Read the name back to its origin and you land on the same plain word: free man.
How many people are named Carola
1 in 417478 women in Poland is named Carola. 54 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #5058 among female names.
Carola as a middle name
Carola is a first name for 54 women in Poland and a middle name for another 27, a 67/33 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 1367th, between Beyza (27) and Carolyn (27).
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#1365 April27
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#1366 Beyza27
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#1367 Carola27
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#1368 Carolyn27
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#1369 Ceren27