Bárbara
From the Greek for "stranger" or "foreigner": the Spanish spelling of Barbara, accent and all. Fitting, since almost no one in Poland carries this version. Fewer than 60 women bear it, so most Poles will never meet one.
Bárbara Pronunciation
Bárbara is pronounced BÁRBAH-rah (/ˈbárbara/).
What Bárbara means
Where Bárbara comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Bárbara begins in Greek, in the word barbaros, which named the foreigner and the stranger. To Greek ears an outsider's speech sounded like a stammer, bar-bar, and the name grew out of that mockery. Polish keeps the sense plain. It reads as cudzoziemka.
The stranger became a saint. Santa Bárbara is honoured across the Spanish-speaking world, and in mining country she guards the men who work underground. She was also called on against lightning and sudden blasts. Poland keeps her on the fourth of December, the day miners call Barbórka, when pit towns in Silesia down tools and walk to Mass in dress uniform.
Polish softens the name into Basia, the form a girl answers to every day. On the school register she is written Barbara. To her friends she is Basia. Under that diminutive the first sense survives: cudzoziemka, the stranger from a Greek word.
How many people are named Bárbara
1 in 388687 women in Poland is named Bárbara. 58 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #4851 among female names.
Bárbara's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Bárbara as a middle name
Bárbara is a first name for 58 women in Poland and a middle name for another 4, a 94/6 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 4006th, between Budzisława (4) and Bénédicte (4).
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#4004 Brygita4
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#4005 Budzisława4
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#4006 Bárbara4
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#4007 Bénédicte4
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#4008 Bích4