Paul
A Latin name meaning "small" or "humble". It stays scarce in Poland: only around 2,400 men carry it, and most Poles have never met one, with the handful of newborns each year still thinning out.
Paul Pronunciation
Paul is pronounced PAH-ool (/ˈpaul/).
What Paul means
Where Paul comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Paul comes from the Latin Paulus, a Roman family name that meant "small." It worked as an ordinary adjective long before it marked out a single person. The English sense keeps close to that root: small, and from there modest.
Reach and meaning pulled in opposite directions. Paul the Apostle wrote letters that spread across the early Christian world, and the humble Latin sense went with the name he signed. In the Roman calendar his feast falls on the twenty-ninth of June, shared with Peter, which fixes the name day many bearers still keep.
The meaning stays low to the ground. To be named Paul is to wear a word that once just meant small, worn now by people who fill a whole page of any class register.
How many people are named Paul
1 in 8935 men in Poland is named Paul. 2,389 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #655 among male names.
Paul's popularity over time
4 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #1127 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2021. Still the #655 name among living men, even as it slips to #1127 among newborns.
Where Paul is most popular
Paul is most popular in Opole, 1463% above the national average (2 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Masovian (+307%).
Paul as a middle name
Paul is a first name for 2,389 men in Poland and a middle name for another 2,571, a 48/52 split — almost evenly. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 159th, between Natan (2,622) and Bruno (2,546).
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157
2,635Samuel
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158
2,622Natan
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1592,571Paul
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160
2,546Bruno
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161
2,511James