Bonifacy
From Latin, carrying the sense of "good fate." Fewer than 700 men in Poland go by it, so most Poles have never met a Bonifacy, and the handful of births in recent years hasn't turned that around.
Bonifacy Pronunciation
Bonifacy is pronounced bo-nyee-FAH-tsih (/bɔɲiˈfat͡sɨ/).
What Bonifacy means
Where Bonifacy comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Bonifacy comes from the Latin Bonifatius, a compound of bonum, meaning good, and fatum, meaning fate. So the oldest sense is literally good fate. Over time Latin speakers reheard the second half as facere, to do, and the name drifted toward someone who does good, the sense Polish keeps in czyniący dobro.
The name traveled with the Church. Several popes took it, and an eighth-century missionary remembered as Boniface carried it across Frankish and Germanic lands, which helped fix it across Christian Europe.
Its cross-gender partner is Bonifacja, rarer now, though it still turns up in old parish records. The name is old. Read out at a May imieniny, it keeps that first Latin promise legible: good fate, and a hand ready to do good.
When Bonifacy celebrates name day
Bonifacy appears 10 times in the Polish name day calendar, 2 of them as a main name, the first on 14 May.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
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in 162 days19 FebruaryFriday in 2027
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in 240 days8 MaySaturday in 2027
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in 282 days19 JuneSaturday in 2027
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in 305 days12 JulyMonday in 2027
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in 341 days17 AugustTuesday in 2027
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in 352 days28 AugustSaturday in 2027
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in 359 days4 SeptemberSaturday in 2027
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in 87 days6 DecemberSunday in 2026
How many people are named Bonifacy
1 in 31208 men in Poland is named Bonifacy. 684 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1135 among male names.
Bonifacy's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been climbing since 2025.
Bonifacy as a middle name
Bonifacy is a first name for 684 men in Poland and a middle name for another 1,043, a 40/60 split, almost evenly. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 226th, between Aleks (1,060) and Christian (1,028).
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#224 Mark1,071
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#225 Aleks1,060
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#226 Bonifacy1,043
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#227 Christian1,028
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#228 Kasper996