Aiden

Aiden traces back to the Irish Gaelic Aodhán, a small form of Aodh, the name of an old Celtic god of fire and the sun. The ending -án does the shrinking work, which is how the name comes to mean little fire. The Celtic root sits under a spelling that looks thoroughly English today.

The best-known early bearer was Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, a 7th-century Irish monk who founded a monastery off the Northumbrian coast. His fame carried the name into English-speaking Christianity, and the English association has held since.

For a long time it stayed rare outside Ireland. Then it climbed. By the early 2000s Aiden and its cousin spellings ranked among the most common boys' names in the United States.

In Poland the name arrives as an import, and a teacher reading a class register may pause over the spelling before the child answers. It stays a boy's name here. No Polish diminutive has grown around it. What remains is the plain sense underneath: a little fire.