Name Awesome

Pamala

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Pamala has been given to 7,357 babies in the U.S. since 1926. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1958, with 314 recorded.

Babies named Pamala, 2001

1 in 416,000

Pamala over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030040018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Pamala: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Pamala means

Pamala is a given name.

The naming story behind Pamala

Wikidata records Pamala as a female given name. The entity identifier is Q63644423, and the classification was checked on 2026-10-20. The spelling matches a source label or alias exactly, without removing accents or linking it to a name merely because the letters look similar.

A database classification is different from an etymological explanation, so those questions remain open in the short meaning.

A modern root explanation needs an additional naming or linguistic reference.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 7,357 girls were recorded with the name Pamala between 1926 and 2001. Its highest annual count was 314 in 1958; its best national rank was #508 in 1954.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Pamala?

Pamala had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2001, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2001
1 in 416,000
9 of 3,742,181 births
Among girls only
1 in 200,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2001
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
288,210 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Pamala sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2001 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 288,210 children born in 2001 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Pamala. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Pamalas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Pamala was born before 1960 — so the typical Pamala is around 65 today.

Median birth year
1960
About 65 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
35.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
7.6%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
6,344
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 35.0% of all recorded uses (2,575).

Is Pamala rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1958 (314)
Years since peak
67
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
27.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#508
1954

Spellings of Pamala

Pamala is not the most common spelling — Pamela is, with 43.5% against Pamala's 0.54%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Pamala is used

Across 1910–2025, Pamala was most concentrated in Arkansas — about 1 in 14,286 girls, against 1 in 30,136 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in —).

07 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Arkansas1 in 14,286
  2. 2Indiana1 in 14,286
  3. 3Michigan1 in 14,286
  4. 4Kansas1 in 16,667
  5. 5Oklahoma1 in 16,667
  6. 6Missouri1 in 20,000
  7. 7Ohio1 in 20,000
  8. 8West Virginia1 in 20,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Pamala has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Pamala around the world

Where Pamala ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • South Australia
    1947–1963
    #644
    in 1963

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Pamala

People whose public names include Pamala, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Pamala in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Pamala. Linked forms have their own page here.

PamelaPamila

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Pamala by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#508
1954
Peak year
1958
314 that year
First recorded
1926
Last recorded
2001
All-time count
7,357
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Pamala

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

MahalaKalaPamellaNalaKamalaMikalaPameliaMakalaTamalaTalaPamilaPamulaAyalaGalaJalaLealaHalaKealaLalaPamlaMykalaMichealaPamelaNeala

Names with a curve like Pamala

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Pamala, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

LaureenGeriGaylaVikkiLynDorindaValorieMaryjoMaribethCarenTereseVickey

Sibling names for Pamala

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Pamala

Top names of 1958, Pamala's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1954Girls' names starting with P