Paavo
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Estonian: a male given name, equivalent to English Paul
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/pɑːʋo̞/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Paavo is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country.
- FIFinland1 in 360(measured from records)
- LVLatvia≈1 in 1.9K
- USUnited States≈1 in 2.4M
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Finland (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 97 (measured from records)
- 1 in 360 (inferred from the name graph)
15,477 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Paavo är en finsk form av Paulus (via → Pawel; → Paul) liksom även en smekform till Paavali (< Pavel). Johan Ludvig Runebergs dikt Högt bland Saarijärvis moar (1830) om bonden Paavo bidrog till namnets spridning i Finland. En känd namnbärare är långdistanslöparen Paavo Nurmi (1897–1973).
Sources 1
- Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
How Paavo is read(measured from records)
Paavo is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Finnish37%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Paavo in Finnish.
- English13%
Finnish form of Paul
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
- Estonian8.4%
a male given name, equivalent to English Paul
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Chinese7.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Paavo in Chinese.
- Latvian6.4%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Paavo in Latvian.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Paavo counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | #165 | 15,477 | 1 in 360 | 42K | Paavo | 97 |
| LV Latvia | #291 | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | — | Paavo | 5 |
| SE Sweden | — | 482 | 1 in 21K | 482 | Paavo | 22 |
| EE Estonia | #347 | ≈270 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | 240 | Paavo | 32 |
| US United States | — | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 2.4M | listed | Paavo | 87 |
| CU Cuba | — | ≈36 est. | ≈1 in 311K | — | Paavo | 1 |
15,477 people counted by DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register). Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); the ee-stat-nimed register. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Paavo is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Paavo är en finsk form av Paulus (via → Pawel; → Paul) liksom även en smekform till Paavali (< Pavel). Johan Ludvig Runebergs dikt Högt bland Saarijärvis moar (1830) om bonden Paavo bidrog till namnets spridning i Finland. En känd namnbärare är långdistanslöparen Paavo Nurmi (1897–1973).
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In German, männl. Vom., finnische Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Paavo Nurmib. 1897FIFinnish middle and long distance runner (1897–1973)
- Paavo Talvelab. 1897FIFinnish general (1897–1973)
- Paavo Yrjöläb. 1902FIFinnish decathlete (1902–1980)
- Paavo Berglundb. 1929FIFinnish conductor and violinist (1929–2012)
- Paavo Haavikkob. 1931FIFinnish poet and writer (1931–2008)
- Paavo Rantanenb. 1934FIFinnish diplomat
- Paavo Heininenb. 1938FIFinnish composer and pianist (1938–2022)
- Paavo Lipponenb. 1941FIFinnish politician
- Paavo Väyrynenb. 1946FIFinnish politician
- Paavo Järvib. 1962EEEstonian conductor (born 1962)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 23 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 42K | #47 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 15K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 1999 | 643 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2000 | 626 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2001 | 609 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2002 | 597 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2003 | 584 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2004 | 571 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2005 | 563 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2006 | 540 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2007 | 522 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2008 | 509 | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Paavo?
- In the etymology graph, Paul, Pablo and Paolo are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Paavo?
- A machine transcription gives /pɑːʋo̞/ (IPA) for Finnish.
- Is Paavo a male or female name?
- Paavo is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Paavo mean?
- In Estonian, a male given name, equivalent to English Paul
- In which country does Paavo have the most bearers?
- In Finland, the national register counted about 15 thousand people named Paavo, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled paavo.
- Where is Paavo most common?
- Paavo is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 360 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Paavo?
- In Finland, the national register counted 15,477 people named Paavo, about 1 in 360 residents.
- How common is Paavo compared with other names?
- In Finland, Paavo is the 165th most common given name of 19,056 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Paavo?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/paavoThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Paavo” — the 165th most common given name in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.