Ignacy
A boy's name climbing back into wider use: more newborns carried it last year than in years past, enough that it rings familiar again. Slavic at root, with fire in the meaning, plain and literal: fiery.
Ignacy Pronunciation
Ignacy is pronounced eeg-NAH-tsih (/igˈnat͡sɨ/).
What Ignacy means
Where Ignacy comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name Ignacy comes with a meaning already attached: fiery, or in Polish ognisty and płomienny. The Latin word for fire, ignis, sits right beside it, close enough that the fire sense has held. Strip the name down and you reach Ignac, the plainer variant a boy answers to.
Poland has handed the name to men who worked with flame and with words. Ignacy Łukasiewicz built the first kerosene lamp and used it to light a street in Lwów in the 1850s. Ignacy Krasicki, bishop and fabulist, wrote the sharp short fables that Polish schoolchildren still read today. Fire twice over, once in the lamp glass and once in the cut of a verse.
His imieniny falls on 31 July.
On a class register the full Ignacy stands formal in ink, while the same boy turns his head for Ignac.
When Ignacy celebrates name day
Ignacy appears 9 times in the Polish name day calendar, 2 of them as a main name, the first on 11 May.
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 Ignacy
1 in 437 men in Poland is named Ignacy. 48,817 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #192 among male names.
Ignacy's popularity over time
4,222 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #8 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000.
Where parents choose Ignacy
Ignacy is most popular in Greater Poland, 15% above the national average (3,276 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Pomeranian (+12%) and Masovian (+11%). It is least common in Opole and Silesian, 25% and 22% below average respectively.
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Greater Poland
+15%1 in 66 babies
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Pomeranian
+12%1 in 67 babies
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Masovian
+11%1 in 68 babies
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Opole
−25%1 in 101 babies
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Silesian
−22%1 in 97 babies
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Lesser Poland
−16%1 in 90 babies
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Greater Poland+15% 3,276 born1 in 66 babies+15%
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Pomeranian+12% 2,187 born1 in 67 babies+12%
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Masovian+11% 5,185 born1 in 68 babies+11%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian+9% 1,571 born1 in 70 babies+9%
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Lublin+9% 1,475 born1 in 70 babies+9%
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Subcarpathian+6% 1,687 born1 in 71 babies+6%
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Warmian-Masurian+6% 1,005 born1 in 71 babies+6%
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West Pomeranian+1% 1,124 born1 in 75 babies+1%
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Lubusz±0% 656 born1 in 76 babies±0%
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Holy Cross−1% 722 born1 in 77 babies−1%
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Łódź−2% 1,647 born1 in 77 babies−2%
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Lower Silesian−7% 1,927 born1 in 82 babies−7%
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Podlaskie−11% 774 born1 in 85 babies−11%
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Lesser Poland−16% 2,518 born1 in 90 babies−16%
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Silesian−22% 2,342 born1 in 97 babies−22%
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Opole−25% 457 born1 in 101 babies−25%
Ignacy as a middle name
Ignacy is a first name for 48,817 men in Poland and a middle name for another 23,016, a 68/32 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 85th, between Zenon (23,662) and Julian (22,467).
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#83 Hubert23,737
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#84 Zenon23,662
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#85 Ignacy23,016
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#86 Julian22,467
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#87 Radosław22,343