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Orest

From the Greek for "of the mountains", carried in Poland mostly through Ukrainian families. Most Poles have never met an Orest, but it's climbing: more boys got it last year than in years past, and it stays strictly a boy's name.

Orest Pronunciation

Orest is pronounced O-rest (/ˈɔrɛst/).

Alive in 2025
2,311
Newborns 2025
45
National rank
#663

What Orest means

Where Orest comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.

Orest reaches Polish through Ukrainian, where it has long been at home. The root is Greek: Orestes, built on oros, the word for mountain. So the short meaning holds, one of the mountains, a dweller of high ground.

Greek myth gave the name its first famous bearer. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, avenged his father and was hounded by the Furies afterward, a figure Aeschylus set on stage in the Oresteia. That weight travelled east and stayed.

In Ukraine the name kept its footing while it grew rare in Poland. There are no soft diminutives on the official record here, no cross-gender pair. Read a class register in a border town and Orest stands alone, unhurried by nicknames.

A boy called Orest carries a mountain in five letters. The Greek oros is still there under the Polish spelling, and the meaning stays plain: mieszkaniec gór, one of the mountains.

How many people are named Orest

1 in 9237 men in Poland is named Orest. 2,311 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #663 among male names.

People with the name Orest 2019 → 2025
2,311 +1,450 since 2019
2020 955 +94
2021 1,093 +138
2022 1,338 +245
2023 2,011 +673
2024 2,168 +157
2025 2,311 +143

Orest's popularity over time

45 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #370 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2010.

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45 newborns with the name Orest in 2025
national rank #370 that year

Where Orest is most popular

Orest is most popular in Lower Silesian, 108% above the national average (32 boys born 2019–2025), followed by West Pomeranian (+33%) and Masovian (+29%). It is least common in Lublin and Subcarpathian, 60% and 58% below average respectively.

More common than average Less common than average

Orest as a middle name

Orest is a first name for 2,311 men in Poland and a middle name for another 206, a 92/8 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 481st, between Mauricio (206) and Abraham (205).

As a first name
2,311
As a middle name
206
first name 92% middle name 8%
Middle-name ranking men

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