Paweł

Paweł begins in Latin, in the word paulus, which meant small or humble. Romans used Paulus as a cognomen long before it became a given name. The apostle Paul carried it across Christian Europe, and the root branched into Paul in English, Paolo in Italian, and Pablo in Spanish. Further east it settled as Pavel, the variant still written in Czech and Russian today.

The meaning, small and humble, sat lightly on the men who wore it large. Karol Wojtyła took the name when he became Pope John Paul II, Jan Paweł II in Polish. On an imieniny, the twenty-fifth of January belongs to Paweł, a date tied to the apostle's conversion.

The name is plain and old. In a Polish class register it rarely stands out, and that is part of why it lasts. What it still says, underneath, is paulus: small, humble.