Andreas

Andreas begins in Greek. It grows from andreios, meaning manly and brave, which reaches back to anēr, the ordinary Greek word for a man, and its stem andr-. So the sense of courage sits inside the name from the start, not attached later.

The first famous bearer was the apostle Andreas, brother of Simon Peter and, by tradition, the first the Gospels call to follow. From that story the name spread west and north, and it settled comfortably in German and Scandinavian use, where Andreas keeps its full Greek shape rather than wearing down. A German Andreas and a Danish Andreas read the same on the page.

The meaning stays plain: manly, brave. A boy who carries it rarely has to explain it, since the sound travels across languages with little friction. Picture a school register in Poland with an exchange student written into it, Andreas, sitting among the Kubas and Wojteks and needing no correction. The bravery in it is old, older than any of its bearers, and it comes straight from andreios.