Danil

Danil is the Russian form of Daniel, and Daniel is Hebrew before it is anything else. The name splits into Dan and El, which together read as "God is my judge." That sentence is old. It belonged first to a prophet in the Babylonian court, a man remembered for reading a king's dreams and surviving a den of lions.

In Poland the name arrives with a Russian accent. A boy called Danil on a school register is usually the son of a family with an eastern tie, Russian, Ukrainian, or Belarusian, and the spelling marks that origin plainly. Somewhere in the wider family you might find a Daniel, the more familiar variant here, or a Daniela, the feminine form. They share one meaning among them.

Danil keeps its verdict close. God is my judge, said without apology.