Lola is a female given name in Spanish, Romance languages, and other language groups. It is a short form of the Spanish name Dolores, meaning "sorrows", taken from one of the titles of the Virgin Mary: Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, or Our Lady of Sorrows. Lola is also a short form of the unrelated German name Aloisia and a hypocorism of Lolita, in particular in Russian. The name Lola is also common in Africa; in Nigeria, many feminine names are shortened to Lola, such as Temilola, Omolola or Damilola. Lola (Tajik for tulip) is also a feminine name in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. It is derived from the Persian لاله or lâleh. Lola is also used as a short form of the name Karolina, which was especially popular in use in the 1920s in Poland and is still used. It is also a form of Carol and Charlotte. Though the name originated with a title for the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, Lola has also acquired a number of contrasting sensual associations. American authors Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz noted in their 2008 book Cool Names for Babies that the name has a sultry image and that people associate the name with the song "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets" from the musical Damn Yankees, in which the character of Lola is the Devil's "best homewrecker". The name also has associations with the Irish-born Lola Montez, who became famous in the nineteenth century as an actress, Spanish dancer, courtesan and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Lolita is a Spanish diminutive form of Lola. The name is sometimes used as a term to indicate a sexually precocious girl, due to its association with the title character of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel Lolita and its film adaptations in 1962 and 1997. The name's sexually charged image in certain countries is also due to associations with "Lola", a 1970 song by The Kinks about a young man's encounter with a transvestite named Lola. The title character in the 1998 German feature film Run Lola Run may also have raised the name's profile, as has Lola, a clever and inquisitive child character in a recently published series of children's picture books by Lauren Child. Names beginning with or containing the letter L have also been particularly fashionable for girls. People named Lola Lola Albright (1924 – 2017), American singer