Wojciech
A Slavic name for a warrior who brings comfort, softened into "joyful warrior." It still sits inside the thirty most-given boys' names, and with roughly 335,000 Poles carrying it, most people know a few.
Wojciech Pronunciation
Wojciech is pronounced VOY-chekh (/ˈvɔjt͡ɕɛx/).
What Wojciech means
Where Wojciech comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Wojciech is built from two old Slavic roots. "Woj" means warrior or the fighting host, and "ciech" traces back to comfort and gladness. Put together they give the meaning recorded for the name: a joyful, comforted warrior, in Polish a wojownik niosący pociechę. The name promises battle and consolation at once.
Poland has carried the name for over a thousand years. Saint Wojciech, the bishop killed in 997 on a mission to the Prussians, made it one of the country's earliest and most enduring. His name day falls on 23 April, still marked as imieniny.
The everyday form is Wojtek. A boy signed into a school register as Wojciech will answer to Wojtek on the playground. The most famous Wojtek was a bear, a Syrian brown bear adopted by Polish soldiers in World War II and enlisted, officially, to carry ammunition.
When Wojciech celebrates name day
Wojciech appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 23 April.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
How many people are named Wojciech
1 in 64 men in Poland is named Wojciech. 335,519 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #30 among male names.
Wojciech's popularity over time
2,366 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #30 among newborns. It has been stable for a decade.
Where Wojciech is most popular
Wojciech is most popular in Greater Poland, 32% above the national average (3,386 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Opole (+22%) and Łódź (+17%). It is least common in Podlaskie and Subcarpathian, 31% and 22% below average respectively.
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Greater Poland3,386 boys born+32%
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Opole675 boys born+22%
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Łódź1,772 boys born+17%
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Świętokrzyskie775 boys born+17%
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Silesian2,979 boys born+9%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian1,380 boys born+6%
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Lublin1,305 boys born+6%
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Warmian-Masurian838 boys born−2%
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Masovian4,081 boys born−4%
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Lesser Poland2,513 boys born−7%
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Lower Silesian1,722 boys born−8%
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Lubusz509 boys born−14%
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West Pomeranian870 boys born−14%
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Subcarpathian1,124 boys born−22%
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Pomeranian1,368 boys born−22%
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Podlaskie544 boys born−31%
Wojciech as a middle name
Wojciech is a first name for 335,519 men in Poland and a middle name for another 189,825, a 64/36 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 15th, between Marcin (190,107) and Łukasz (174,086).
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#13 Grzegorz196,022
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#14 Marcin190,107
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#15 Wojciech189,825
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#16 Łukasz174,086
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#17 Kazimierz165,333