Irene
From the Greek for "peace", it's the foreign-looking cousin of the homegrown Irena. Fewer than 500 people carry it across Poland and almost no girls are given it now, so meeting one would stick in your memory.
Irene Pronunciation
Irene is pronounced ee-RE-ne (/iˈrɛnɛ/).
What Irene means
Where Irene comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Irene comes from the Greek Eirene, the word for peace and the name of the goddess who personified it. Greek mothers and daughters carried it long before it reached Poland, and the short meaning has stayed fixed: peace, in Polish pokój.
In Italy and Spain the name took root and softened, and Saint Irene has long been venerated in the Catholic calendar. From that Mediterranean south the name traveled north, where Polish speakers made it their own with a family of forms. Irena is the fuller variant, while Irenka and Irka are the diminutives.
The meaning did real work. A girl named for peace answered to it every time a teacher read the roll.
Irka is short and blunt; Irenka is fond; Irena stands on official forms at the urząd. The origin never wandered far from that first Greek word, and a child answering to Irka today still answers, at some remove, to peace.
How many people are named Irene
1 in 47561 women in Poland is named Irene. 479 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1344 among female names.
Irene's popularity over time
0 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been climbing since 2025.
Where Irene is most popular
Irene is most popular in Pomeranian, 1367% above the national average (2 girls born 2019–2025).
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Pomeranian2 girls born+1367%
Irene as a middle name
Irene is a first name for 479 women in Poland and a middle name for another 365, a 57/43 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 357th, between Hanka (365) and Dobrawa (364).
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355
367Żaklina
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356
365Hanka
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357365Irene
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358
364Dobrawa
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359
363Katharina