Cem
A Turkish name meaning "king" or "ruler", tracing back to Jamshid. In Poland barely anyone carries it: fewer than 130 men in the whole country, and no boys were given it last year.
Cem Pronunciation
Cem is pronounced TSEM (/t͡sɛm/).
What Cem means
Where Cem comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Cem is a Turkish name, and it points back to Jamshid, the legendary shah of Persian myth. In the old stories Jamshid ruled the world for a very long age and taught people crafts and the making of wine. His name shortened over time to Jam, and in Turkish that became Cem, said like the English "Jem". So the short meaning, king and ruler, comes straight from that first great king.
History gives the name a real face. Cem Sultan, born in 1459, was a son of Mehmed the Conqueror. When his father died, he fought his brother Bayezid II for the Ottoman throne and lost. He spent his last years in European exile, held in Rhodes, in France, and finally in Rome, where he died in 1495.
In Poland the name is rare. A Polish teacher reading a class register might pause at the single syllable before saying it. There is no diminutive to soften it and no variant to hide behind. The name keeps its meaning plainly: Cem, the king.
How many people are named Cem
1 in 168080 men in Poland is named Cem. 127 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2954 among male names.
Cem as a middle name
Cem is a first name for 127 men in Poland and a middle name for another 56, a 69/31 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 994th, between Valentine (57) and Elvis (56).
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#992 Ramesh57
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#993 Valentine57
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#994 Cem56
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#995 Elvis56
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#996 Gunnar56