Angelo

Angelo begins in Greek, in the word angelos, which meant a messenger. Such a messenger might run news between cities or stand between mortals and their gods. Early Christian writers used the same word for the winged messengers of heaven, and so the name gathered a double meaning: angel and messenger, one sense folded into the other.

Italy took the name up early and made it its own. Angelo spread across the peninsula as a common Christian given name, and it survives inside longer forms too. Michelangelo joins Michael to Angelo, so the sculptor of the Sistine ceiling carried a messenger in his name. The Dominican painter known as Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro, wore a version of it as well.

The root is Greek. A Polish reader will still hear anioł behind it, the angel of the imieniny calendar and the church window. What the name has meant since the beginning stays plain: angel, messenger.