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Pola

Girl name · 139 babies recorded · 1974–2025

Pola: 139 babies born in Scotland since 1974, given to girls, peaking at 13 births in 2015.

Pola is a name with multiple roots: it often serves as a Polish and Slavic short form of Apollonia, meaning “belonging to Apollo,” or of Paula, from the Latin “paulus” meaning “small” or “humble.” In Slavic languages, it can also derive from “pole,” meaning “field.” The most famous bearer is Pola Negri, the Polish-born silent-film star who became Hollywood’s first European sex symbol and an icon of the 1920s. More recently, Pola Uddin, Baroness Uddin, became the first Muslim woman to sit in the British House of Lords. The Italian city of Pola—now Pula, Croatia—shares the root but is unrelated to the name’s etymology. A close variant, Polina, is