Ginter
A Germanic name at root, carrying the sense of a warrior and the army at his command. Around 1,900 Polish men hold it, all of them men, and hardly any boys receive it now: most Poles have never met a Ginter.
Ginter Pronunciation
Ginter is pronounced GEEN-ter (/ˈgintɛr/).
What Ginter means
Where Ginter comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Ginter comes to Polish from the Germanic name Gunther, built from two old roots: gund, meaning battle, and hari, meaning army. Joined together they name the commander of an army, in Polish a dowódca wojska, the man who leads warriors into the field.
The name traveled east with German speakers and settled in Poland as Ginter, keeping the hard opening while losing the umlaut of Günther. It shows up across Pomerania and Silesia as both a first name and a surname, in a region where German and Polish life overlapped for centuries.
A boy called Ginter meets his name early. He hears the teacher read it from the class register, one syllable clipped before the next. On a form at the urząd it sits plainly, five letters, with no diminutive to soften it.
The meaning stays close to the surface. Battle and army, joined in one word. Whoever answers to Ginter answers to a name that once marked the figure at the head of the ranks, a dowódca wojska.
When Ginter celebrates name day
Ginter appears 3 times in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 8 October.
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 Ginter
1 in 11241 men in Poland is named Ginter. 1,899 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #717 among male names.
Ginter as a middle name
Ginter is a first name for 1,899 men in Poland and a middle name for another 756, a 72/28 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 261st, between Jeremiasz (760) and Luis (756).
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#259 Aureliusz760
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#260 Jeremiasz760
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#261 Ginter756
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#262 Luis756
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#263 Euzebiusz753