Christian

The name Christian comes from the Greek christianos, a follower of Christ. The Greeks formed it from Christos, the anointed one, and used it first for the early believers who gathered under that word. From there it settled into English, German, and Scandinavian naming, where it works as both a confession of faith and an ordinary given name.

Scandinavia handed the name a crown. Denmark numbered ten kings called Christian, running from the fifteenth century into the twentieth. Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish teller of fairy stories, carried it as his middle name and made it known far past the North.

The meaning has never wandered. On a Polish class register Christian sits a little apart from Krzysztof, yet both trace back to the same Greek root. Say what the entry means and it comes out plain: one who follows Christ, christianos.