Name Awesome

Petula

Girls' name

Meaning uncertain in the cited reference

Petula has been given to 179 babies in the U.S. since 1965. 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 1968, with 39 recorded.

Babies named Petula, 1977

1 in 635,000

Petula over time, 1880–2025

Girls
01020304018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Petula: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning uncertain in the cited reference

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Petula means

Petula is a given name.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Petula is used in English (Rare).

Another recorded pronunciation is /pə.ˈtju.lə/ for Petula.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 179 girls were recorded with the name Petula between 1965 and 1977. Its highest annual count was 39 in 1968; its best national rank was #1,934 in 1968.

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 Petula?

Petula had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1977, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1977
1 in 635,000
5 of 3,176,294 births
Among girls only
1 in 307,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1977
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
440,329 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Petula 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 1977 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 440,329 children born in 1977 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Petula. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Petulas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Petula was born before 1968 — so the typical Petula is around 57 today.

Median birth year
1968
About 57 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
65.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
179
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 65.4% of all recorded uses (117).

Is Petula 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 1968 (39)
Years since peak
57
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
41.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,934
1968

Spellings of Petula

Petula is not the most common spelling — Paula is, with 76.2% against Petula's 0.05%.

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 Petula is used

Across 1910–2025, Petula was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 2,084,400 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in —

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. Petula has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Petula around the world

Where Petula 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.

  • England & Wales
    2025–2025
    #5,927
    in 2025
  • France
    1963–2010
    #6,528
    in 2010
  • South Australia
    1967–1972
    #722
    in 1972

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Petula 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
#1,934
1968
Peak year
1968
39 that year
First recorded
1965
Last recorded
1977
All-time count
179
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Petula

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

NebulaPetronaPetinaPetriceTalulaTallulaToulaPetreaTamulaPetePetritaPetronilaLoulaThulaKaulaAzulaShaulaAngulaPetuniaPetalPamulaAnapaulaDulaRula

Sibling names for Petula

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 Petula

Top names of 1968, Petula's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1968Girls' names starting with P