Iskandar
A rare name in Poland: fewer than a hundred men carry it, and the records log no newborns at all this century. Greek at root, it means "defender of men" and reached Polish use through Arabic.
Iskandar Pronunciation
Iskandar is pronounced ees-KAHN-dahr (/isˈkandar/).
What Iskandar means
Where Iskandar comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Iskandar is the Arabic form of the Greek name Alexandros, and it reached that form by a long road east. The Greek pieces are alexein, to defend, and aner, meaning man. Put together they give the sense the name still holds: defender of men, in Polish obrońca ludzi.
The Arabic and Persian world took Alexander in under this name. Alexander the Great appears in the Quran and in Persian epic as Iskandar, a king said to have traveled to the ends of the earth. So the Greek conqueror became a legend of the East, and the name spread across Central Asia, Malaysia, and the Middle East.
In a Polish class register the name stands out. It is short, three syllables, plainly borrowed. There are no local diminutives to soften it. A child called Iskandar in Kraków carries a Greek meaning through an Arabic mouth.
Defender of men. That is the promise folded into Iskandar, obrońca ludzi.
How many people are named Iskandar
1 in 248211 men in Poland is named Iskandar. 86 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3797 among male names.
Iskandar as a middle name
Iskandar is a first name for 86 men in Poland and a middle name for another 2, a 98/2 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 7941st, between Ishwar (2) and Issachar (2).
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#7939 Ishtiaq2
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#7940 Ishwar2
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#7941 Iskandar2
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#7942 Issachar2
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#7943 Itayi2