Agnieszka
More than half a million Polish women carry it, yet it barely reaches the next generation now: only 76 newborn girls last year. At root the name means pure.
Agnieszka Pronunciation
Agnieszka is pronounced ahg-NYESH-kah (/agˈɲɛʂka/).
What Agnieszka means
Where Agnieszka comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Agnieszka grew up on Slavic ground, and the meaning fastened to it stayed plain: pure, chaste. Poles wore the full name down into softer shapes over many generations. Aga is the quick one, the version a teacher calls across a class register. Jagna, Jaga, and Jagienka feel older and more rural, closer to folk song than to the christening record.
The sense of "pure" traveled with the name from Saint Agnes of Rome, whose feast falls on 21 January and gives Polish Agnieszkas their imieniny. The same root surfaces as Agnes in English and Inés in Spanish, though Poland kept the longer, softer spelling.
The meaning has not drifted. Under Agnieszka and its rural Jagna alike, the old sense holds: czysta, chaste.
When Agnieszka celebrates name day
Agnieszka appears 9 times in the Polish name day calendar, 2 of them as a main name, the first on 21 January.
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.
How many people are named Agnieszka
1 in 41 women in Poland is named Agnieszka. 546,248 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #7 among female names.
Agnieszka's popularity over time
76 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #278 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000. Still the #7 name among living women, even as it slips to #278 among newborns.
Where Agnieszka is most popular
Agnieszka is most popular in Silesian, 49% above the national average (158 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Lesser Poland (+43%) and Opole (+39%). It is least common in Łódź and Warmian-Masurian, 36% and 34% below average respectively.
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Silesian158 girls born+49%
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Lesser Poland152 girls born+43%
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Opole30 girls born+39%
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Pomeranian89 girls born+29%
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Lubusz26 girls born+12%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian52 girls born+2%
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Lower Silesian69 girls born−6%
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Świętokrzyskie23 girls born−11%
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Greater Poland88 girls born−13%
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Podlaskie26 girls born−15%
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West Pomeranian32 girls born−19%
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Subcarpathian45 girls born−20%
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Masovian126 girls born−24%
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Lublin34 girls born−29%
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Warmian-Masurian22 girls born−34%
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Łódź38 girls born−36%
Agnieszka as a middle name
Agnieszka is a first name for 546,248 women in Poland and a middle name for another 275,512, a 66/34 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 10th, between Magdalena (301,969) and Zofia (265,565).
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#8 Elżbieta312,408
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#9 Magdalena301,969
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#10 Agnieszka275,512
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#11 Zofia265,565
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#12 Krystyna219,755