Alisher
An Arabic name meaning "exalted lion", carried only by men. Fewer than 500 in all of Poland hold it, and no boys were given it last year: rare enough that most Poles have never met one.
Alisher Pronunciation
What Alisher means
Where Alisher comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name Alisher is built from two languages. Its first part, Ali, comes from Arabic and means high or exalted, the same element that runs through much of Muslim naming. The second part, shir, is Persian for lion. Read together they give the short meaning kept on this site: exalted lion, or wzniosły lew in Polish.
Because it fuses an Arabic word with a Persian one, its origin is filed under "other" rather than a single tongue. The Arabic half is usually what a Polish reader hears first.
The best documented bearer is Ali-Shir Nava'i, who lived from 1441 to 1501. A poet and high official in Herat, he wrote in Chagatai Turkic and argued that his own language could carry serious literature as well as Persian could. His fame spread the compound name eastward, and it stayed common across Central Asia long after him.
In a Polish class register, Alisher would sit oddly among the Kacpers and Barteks. It points to a family with roots much further east. The lion stays in it, exalted.
How many people are named Alisher
1 in 42020 men in Poland is named Alisher. 508 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1307 among male names.