Maksymilian
Latin at root, where it carried the sense of "greatest". A name most Poles recognize without a second thought, and after a slack spell it's climbing back, now sitting inside the country's 150 most-given boys' names.
Maksymilian Pronunciation
Maksymilian is pronounced mahk-sih-MEEL-yahn (/maksɨˈmiljan/).
What Maksymilian means
Where Maksymilian comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name comes from Latin Maximilianus. Its first part holds maximus, the superlative "greatest," and the given short meaning stays close to that. According to a long-repeated account, Emperor Frederick III coined the name for his son in the fifteenth century by fusing two Roman names he admired, Maximus and Aemilianus. That second half explains the fuller Polish gloss: największy z rodu Emiliuszów, greatest of the Aemilian line.
So the meaning "greatest" sits in the root itself, there from the first coining. A boy named Maksymilian carries a superlative from Rome forward into a Kraków class register.
The best-known Polish bearer is Maksymilian Maria Kolbe, the Franciscan friar who died at Auschwitz in 1941. His feast on 14 August fixed one of the name's imieniny, and Polish calendars still print it. Maks does the daily work as the diminutive, short and quick at school. The spelling Maximillian appears too, closer to the German and English forms worn by the Habsburg emperors.
Grand at full length, plain as Maks. The name reaches back to Maximus, greatest.
When Maksymilian celebrates name day
Maksymilian appears 6 times in the Polish name day calendar, 2 of them as a main name, the first on 14 August.
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 Maksymilian
1 in 294 men in Poland is named Maksymilian. 72,540 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #148 among male names.
Maksymilian's popularity over time
2,760 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #20 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000.
Where parents choose Maksymilian
Maksymilian is most popular in Pomeranian, 22% above the national average (1,663 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Silesian (+21%) and Lesser Poland (+19%). It is least common in Podlaskie and Warmian-Masurian, both 28% below average.
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Pomeranian
+22%1 in 89 babies
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Silesian
+21%1 in 89 babies
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Lesser Poland
+19%1 in 91 babies
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Podlaskie
−28%1 in 151 babies
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Warmian-Masurian
−28%1 in 151 babies
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Lublin
−26%1 in 146 babies
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Pomeranian+22% 1,663 born1 in 89 babies+22%
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Silesian+21% 2,547 born1 in 89 babies+21%
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Lesser Poland+19% 2,489 born1 in 91 babies+19%
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Subcarpathian+19% 1,324 born1 in 91 babies+19%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian−1% 993 born1 in 110 babies−1%
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Greater Poland−1% 1,955 born1 in 110 babies−1%
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Lubusz−5% 437 born1 in 114 babies−5%
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Masovian−6% 3,060 born1 in 116 babies−6%
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Opole−8% 389 born1 in 118 babies−8%
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Łódź−10% 1,050 born1 in 121 babies−10%
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Lower Silesian−11% 1,288 born1 in 122 babies−11%
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West Pomeranian−11% 689 born1 in 123 babies−11%
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Holy Cross−19% 416 born1 in 133 babies−19%
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Lublin−26% 704 born1 in 146 babies−26%
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Podlaskie−28% 437 born1 in 151 babies−28%
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Warmian-Masurian−28% 476 born1 in 151 babies−28%
Maksymilian as a middle name
Maksymilian is a first name for 72,540 men in Poland and a middle name for another 31,271, a 70/30 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 73rd, between Krystian (32,812) and Witold (29,178).
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#71 Adrian33,341
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#72 Krystian32,812
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#73 Maksymilian31,271
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#74 Witold29,178
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#75 Bartosz28,854