András

András comes from the Greek Andreas, and behind that name stands the word andreios, meaning manly or brave. The root is anēr, andros, the ordinary Greek word for a man. The name says something plain about strength before it says anything else.

The apostle Andrew carried this Greek name first, a fisherman from Galilee, and it traveled north and east across Europe until Hungarian speakers shaped it into András. The vowels shifted, the stress settled on the first syllable, and the meaning held: manly, brave.

A child called András in a Polish szkoła hears his name read from the register with that long final á, a spelling that marks it as arriving from beyond the border.

The story is old and direct. Whoever wears it is called brave in Greek before he can spell either word.