Paola is the Italian and Spanish form of Paula — from the Latin paulus ("small, humble"). A top-500 US baby name since 1990. Paola Cortellesi (born 1973) — Italian actress and director; There's Still Tomorrow (C'è ancora domani, 2023) — her directorial debut became the highest-grossing Italian film of 2023 and was the most-viewed film at the Rome Film Festival. Saint Paola of Rome (347-404) — Roman noblewoman and scholar; companion of Saint Jerome in translating the Vulgate Bible; her feast is celebrated January 26.
Paola does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Paola reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.