Basti
Fewer than 30 people in Poland carry it, so most Poles have never met one. It began as a short form of Sebastian, a man's name meaning "venerable", yet nearly all of the few who hold it are women.
Basti Pronunciation
Basti is pronounced BAHS-tee (/ˈbasti/).
What Basti means
Where Basti comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Basti is the short German form of Sebastian, used across Germany and Austria as an everyday call-name. Sebastian comes from the Greek Sebastianos, meaning a person from Sebasteia, an old city in Asia Minor. That place name grew from the Greek word sebastos, venerable or revered, which the Greeks used to render the Latin imperial title Augustus. The meaning attached to Basti runs back to a word once reserved for emperors.
The saint behind the fuller name gives it a fixed day. Sebastian was a Roman soldier martyred under Diocletian, and his feast falls on 20 January. A Polish Sebastian marks his imieniny then, even when friends only ever call him Basti.
Basti stays short. It keeps the Greek sense of revered without any fuss. On a class register the full name still reads Sebastian, czcigodny in Polish.
How many people are named Basti
1 in 867071 women in Poland is named Basti. 28 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #7804 among female names.