Alexei
A Russian form resting on the Greek for "defender". Only around 800 men in Poland carry it, and it goes to no newborns now: most Poles have never met one.
Alexei Pronunciation
What Alexei means
Where Alexei comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name Alexei comes from Greek, from the verb alexein, "to defend, to ward off." The Greek form Alexios gave a defender, and Russian carried it forward as Alexei, the version most Polish readers will recognize. Its short meaning holds steady across languages: defender, or obrońca.
Russia is where the name gathered its weight of association. Alexei was the name of tsars and of the last tsarevich, Alexei Nikolaevich, born in 1904, heir to Nicholas II and afflicted with hemophilia. Dostoevsky gave the name to Alyosha Karamazov, the youngest brother and the moral center of his final novel. So a name meaning defender attached itself, in Russian hands, to figures who were guarded rather than guarding.
In Poland the name reads as clearly foreign, and that is part of its appeal on a class register. A boy called Alexei stands slightly apart from the Jakubs and Antonis around him.
The root stays legible under every spelling. Strip away the Slavic ending and you reach the same Greek promise: one who defends.
How many people are named Alexei
1 in 25812 men in Poland is named Alexei. 827 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1037 among male names.
Alexei as a middle name
Alexei is a first name for 827 men in Poland and a middle name for another 8, a 99/1 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 3469th, between Akshay (8) and Algiment (8).
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#3467 Aiman8
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#3468 Akshay8
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#3469 Alexei8
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#3470 Algiment8
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#3471 Aliev8