National Paula Day

The name Paula traces back to a fourth-century Roman noblewoman who abandoned senatorial wealth to build monasteries in Bethlehem, and it spent much of the twentieth century as one of America's most popular girls' names. National Paula Day marks a name whose bearers have set marathon world records, topped Billboard charts, and dominated bestseller lists.

Portugal claims the highest concentration of Paulas on the planet, but the name's American story is just as striking: it climbed from obscurity to the SSA top 40 in barely a decade, then faded just as fast. The holiday captures that arc at the close of the calendar year.

Paula comes from the Latin family name Paulus, meaning "small" or "humble." The masculine form gained wide recognition through the Apostle Paul, and the feminine version spread across Europe as Christianity expanded through the Roman Empire and the medieval church.

The name's most influential early bearer was Saint Paula of Rome, born in 347 AD into a patrician family with deep ties to the Roman Senate. After the death of her husband, she became a follower of Saint Jerome and devoted her remaining years to religious scholarship and charitable work.

A Noblewoman in Bethlehem

In 385, Paula left Rome with her daughter Eustochium and traveled to the Holy Land on an extensive pilgrimage. She settled in Bethlehem, where she and Jerome established a double monastery, one for women under Paula's leadership and one for monks.

Paula also built a roadside hospice for pilgrims traveling to the site of the Nativity. She died in Bethlehem in 404 and was later canonized, with her feast day observed on January 26.

Mid-Century Popularity Surge

In the United States, Paula entered the Social Security Administration's top 100 baby names in the late 1940s and climbed steadily. By 1954, it reached its peak at number 38, part of a wave of Latinate girls' names that included Linda, Donna, and Barbara. The name held strong through the 1960s, still ranking in the top 50 as late as 1964.

From Pop Charts to a Name-Day Calendar

The name gained renewed cultural visibility through high-profile Paulas in entertainment, sports, and literature. Paula Abdul's debut album in 1988 launched a pop career that would also include eight seasons as a judge on American Idol.

Today, about 372,000 Americans carry the name, though it has been steadily declining since the 1970s. National Paula Day appeared on informal online holiday calendars in the early 2000s as part of the broader name-day movement, though no specific founder or formal establishment has been documented.