Paula

Paula is the feminine form of Paul, from the Latin paulus, "small, humble." Saint Paula of Rome, a fourth-century noblewoman who followed Saint Jerome to Bethlehem and helped fund the Vulgate, gave the name an early scholarly dimension. Common in Poland, Spain, and Germany, it hit its American peak in the 1960s, spending nearly three decades in the top two hundred. Two syllables with that long au opening, round and unfussy. Paula Modersohn-Becker's portraits and Paul Simon's wife-muse Paula added artistic shading. Currently uncommon on US registries, which makes it feel clean rather than dated. Solid, continental, quietly assured.