Pablo
A masculine name of Spanish origin meaning "small" or "little one".
Name Census estimates that about 43,482 living Americans carry the first name Pablo. It sits at #406 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Pablo today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Pablo births was 2006 (1,174 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Pablo. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Pablo with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Pablo is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 69 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
43K
~ 1 in 7,883 Americans
Peak year
2006
1,174 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2024 SSA rank
#406
Tracked since 1880
Census
Pablo in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 80,700 people with the first name Pablo, which placed it at #657 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#657
National first-name rank
People counted
81K
80,700 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
26.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
95.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Pablo
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Pablo is Hispanic at 95.4%. The next largest groups are White (2.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (1.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Pablo described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Pablo at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino95.4% · 77,023
- White2.5% · 2,049
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.2% · 963
- Black or African American0.5% · 416
- Two or more races0.2% · 129
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 120
Gender
Gender distribution for Pablo
Out of the 49,686 babies given the name Pablo since 1880, 99.9% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Pablo as a male name
- Ranked #406 in 2024
- 794 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2006 (1,174 births)
Pablo as a female name
- Ranked #16,906 in 2000
- 5 female births in 2000
- Peak: 1994 (10 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Pablo appears almost entirely male. Of the 80,699 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Pablo: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Pablo from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 10,487 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Pablo remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Pablo by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Pablo during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Pablos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 43 states and territories. Texas, California, New York recorded the most babies named Pablo, while South Dakota, Rhode Island, Mississippi recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,077 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Pablo
Pablo is a masculine given name derived from the Roman family name Paulinus, which is itself a diminutive form of the name Paulus, meaning "small" or "humble" in Latin. The name Paulus stems from the ancient Roman gens Paulla, one of the most distinguished families in the Roman Republic.
The name Pablo gained widespread popularity through Saint Paul the Apostle, one of the most influential figures in early Christianity. Saint Paul, originally known as Saul of Tarsus, played a significant role in the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire after his conversion on the road to Damascus, as recorded in the New Testament.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Pablo can be found in the 9th century, when a Benedictine monk named Pablo de Santa María lived in the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla in the Kingdom of Navarre, present-day Spain. This early use of the name reflects its deep roots in the Iberian Peninsula.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Pablo. One of the most famous was Pablo Picasso, the renowned Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, and co-founder of the Cubist movement. Born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain, Picasso's revolutionary artistic style and prolific body of work have had a profound influence on modern art.
Another prominent figure named Pablo was Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet, diplomat, and political activist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Neruda, born in 1904 as Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, is celebrated for his passionate love poems and his profound exploration of political and social themes.
In the realm of religion, Pablo de Santa María, also known as Solomon Levi, was a influential figure in 15th-century Spain. Born a Jew in 1351, he converted to Christianity and became a prominent theologian, writer, and Bishop of Burgos, playing a significant role in the persecution of Jews in Spain.
Pablo Escobar, the notorious Colombian drug lord and narco-terrorist, was another notable figure with the name. Born in 1949, Escobar headed the Medellín Cartel and became one of the wealthiest criminals in history, amassing a vast fortune from the production and distribution of cocaine.
Finally, Pablo Picasso's grandson, Pablo Picasso Jr., born in 1949, was a successful car designer and entrepreneur who founded the Picasso line of luxury vehicles, showcasing his family's artistic legacy in the automotive industry.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Pablo
People
Pablo + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Pablo as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with P
Other first names starting with P with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Pablo: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Pablo?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 43,482 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Pablo going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 7,883 US residents.
Is Pablo a common name?
We classify Pablo as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 49,686 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Pablo most popular?
The single biggest year for Pablo was 2006, when 1,174 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Pablo is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Pablo in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 80,700 people with the name Pablo, or 26.72 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #657 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Pablo in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Pablo?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Pablo appears almost entirely male. Of the 80,699 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Pablo?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Pablo is Hispanic at 95.4%. The next largest groups are White (2.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (1.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Pablo most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Pablo in the 2020 Census, accounting for 95.4% (77,023 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Pablo in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Pablo a male name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Pablo in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Pablo still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Pablo in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Pablo can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Pablo?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.