Ivan
The Slavic form of the name English speakers call John, carrying the old sense "god is gracious". Around 56,000 men in Poland hold it today, all of them men, though it stays a name given here more in ones and twos than in crowds.
Ivan Pronunciation
What Ivan means
Where Ivan comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Ivan is the Slavic form of the name English speakers know as John. Its root reaches back to the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning "God is gracious." That sense traveled through the Greek Ioannes and the Latin before Slavic tongues reshaped the sound into Ivan. So the meaning held while the sound moved.
The name settled deepest in Russia and Ukraine. Ivan IV of Moscow, called the Terrible, made it heavy with history in the sixteenth century. Ukraine gave it a gentler bearer in Ivan Franko, the poet and scholar whose face now appears on the twenty-hryvnia note. Same four letters, very different lives.
In Poland the name arrives as a guest, familiar and foreign at once. A teacher reading a class register might slow for a beat at an Ivan among the Jans and Janeks. That small pause is no rejection. It only marks where the name came from, and the old promise it still holds, that God is gracious.
How many people are named Ivan
1 in 379 men in Poland is named Ivan. 56,307 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #174 among male names.
Ivan's popularity over time
51 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #349 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2003. Still the #174 name among living men, even as it slips to #349 among newborns.
Where parents choose Ivan
Ivan is most popular in Lower Silesian, 131% above the national average (45 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Lubusz (+95%) and Greater Poland (+46%). It is least common in Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Lublin, 71% and 69% below average respectively.
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Lower Silesian
+131%1 in 3,492 babies
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Lubusz
+95%1 in 4,138 babies
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Greater Poland
+46%1 in 5,519 babies
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian
−71%1 in 27,345 babies
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Lublin
−69%1 in 25,669 babies
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Opole
−65%1 in 23,048 babies
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Lower Silesian+131% 45 born1 in 3,492 babies+131%
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Lubusz+95% 12 born1 in 4,138 babies+95%
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Greater Poland+46% 39 born1 in 5,519 babies+46%
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Masovian+43% 63 born1 in 5,623 babies+43%
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West Pomeranian−4% 10 born1 in 8,443 babies−4%
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Silesian−4% 27 born1 in 8,429 babies−4%
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Łódź−5% 15 born1 in 8,448 babies−5%
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Warmian-Masurian−21% 7 born1 in 10,256 babies−21%
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Pomeranian−34% 12 born1 in 12,277 babies−34%
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Lesser Poland−36% 18 born1 in 12,606 babies−36%
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Subcarpathian−53% 7 born1 in 17,224 babies−53%
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Holy Cross−56% 3 born1 in 18,478 babies−56%
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Opole−65% 2 born1 in 23,048 babies−65%
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Lublin−69% 4 born1 in 25,669 babies−69%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian−71% 4 born1 in 27,345 babies−71%
Ivan as a middle name
Ivan is a first name for 56,307 men in Poland and a middle name for another 363, a 99/1 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 369th, between Steven (366) and Leonardo (361).
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#367 Ian369
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#368 Steven366
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#369 Ivan363
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#370 Leonardo361
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#371 Viktor361