Barbara
From Greek, the name carries the sense of "foreign" or "stranger". Nearly half a million Polish women hold it, yet it's fading now: only about 735 girls got it last year.
Barbara Pronunciation
Barbara is pronounced bahr-BAH-rah (/barˈbara/).
What Barbara means
Where Barbara comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Barbara comes from Greek. The root barbaros meant foreign or strange, a word the Greeks pinned on anyone whose speech sounded like babble to them. The name began by pointing outward, toward the stranger, the woman arrived from elsewhere. Its short meaning stays close to that first sense: foreign, a stranger.
Saint Barbara, an early Christian martyr, carried the name into the church calendar. In Poland her day falls on 4 December, Barbórka, when miners honour her as their patron and the pit villages hold their feast. So a name that once marked the outsider became a fixed point in the year.
Basia is the diminutive, soft and everyday. In a Polish class register a teacher reads out Barbara, and the girl answers to Basia. The old sense holds underneath: foreign, a stranger.
When Barbara celebrates name day
Barbara appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 4 December.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
How many people are named Barbara
1 in 48 women in Poland is named Barbara. 473,856 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #12 among female names.
Barbara's popularity over time
735 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #83 among newborns. It has been stable for a decade. Still the #12 name among living women, even as it slips to #83 among newborns.
Where Barbara is most popular
Barbara is most popular in Masovian, 56% above the national average (1,907 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Łódź (+28%) and Greater Poland (+14%). It is least common in Subcarpathian and Silesian, 46% and 36% below average respectively.
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Masovian1,907 girls born+56%
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Łódź559 girls born+28%
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Greater Poland843 girls born+14%
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Warmian-Masurian260 girls born+5%
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Pomeranian483 girls born−5%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian355 girls born−6%
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Świętokrzyskie180 girls born−6%
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West Pomeranian265 girls born−9%
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Opole142 girls born−10%
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Lower Silesian481 girls born−11%
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Lublin296 girls born−16%
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Lesser Poland641 girls born−18%
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Lubusz132 girls born−23%
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Podlaskie164 girls born−28%
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Silesian503 girls born−36%
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Subcarpathian222 girls born−46%
Barbara as a middle name
Barbara is a first name for 473,856 women in Poland and a middle name for another 403,010, a 54/46 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 4th, between Katarzyna (417,647) and Ewa (372,483).
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#2 Anna896,998
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#3 Katarzyna417,647
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#4 Barbara403,010
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#5 Ewa372,483
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#6 Teresa354,803