Kaspian

Kaspian traces back through Greek to the name of the Caspian Sea, that vast inland water between Europe and Asia. The sea itself took its name from the Caspi, an ancient people who lived along its shores. So the short meaning, "of the Caspian Sea," points to geography before it points to any person. A child called Kaspian carries a body of water in the oldest sense of the word.

In Poland the name arrives most often in its worn-down variants, Kacper and Kasper, which soften the Greek edges into something local. Readers of C.S. Lewis met the form Caspian in the Narnia books, where a young king sails east toward the world's end. The water suits that story.

Kaspian stays rarer than Kacper on a Polish class register. It keeps its full Greek shape and means what it always meant: of the Caspian Sea.