Maximilian
Latin for "greatest", now given only to boys. Fewer than 5,000 Polish men carry it, so meeting one stays memorable, though a small run of newborns each year keeps it going.
Maximilian Pronunciation
What Maximilian means
Where Maximilian comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Maximilian comes from the Latin Maximilianus, a Roman family name built on maximus, "greatest." The word makes a large promise. Roman parents who used it were reaching for the top of the scale, and the name kept that sense as it moved north into the German lands.
There it found its most famous bearer. Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor around 1500, gave the name a court and a crown, and the German association has held ever since. Poland took the Latin root and spelled it its own way, as Maksymilian, with Maksym as a nearby variant and Maks as the short form a child answers to.
One Polish Maksymilian carried the meaning further than any emperor. Maksymilian Maria Kolbe, the Franciscan friar canonized in 1982, gave his life for another prisoner at Auschwitz. On a school register the name still sits full and formal, Maksymilian, while friends outside call him Maks. The Polish gloss stays plain: największy, greatest.
How many people are named Maximilian
1 in 4585 men in Poland is named Maximilian. 4,656 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #503 among male names.
Maximilian's popularity over time
67 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #301 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2001.
Where Maximilian is most popular
Maximilian is most popular in West Pomeranian, 72% above the national average (35 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Opole (+71%) and Lubusz (+50%). It is least common in Łódź and Lublin, 44% and 39% below average respectively.
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West Pomeranian35 boys born+72%
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Opole19 boys born+71%
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Lubusz18 boys born+50%
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Pomeranian45 boys born+27%
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Lower Silesian46 boys born+21%
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Lesser Poland62 boys born+13%
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Silesian56 boys born+2%
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Greater Poland50 boys born−4%
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Subcarpathian26 boys born−11%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian23 boys born−13%
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Masovian71 boys born−17%
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Podlaskie13 boys born−18%
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Świętokrzyskie11 boys born−18%
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Warmian-Masurian14 boys born−19%
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Lublin15 boys born−39%
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Łódź17 boys born−44%
Maximilian as a middle name
Maximilian is a first name for 4,656 men in Poland and a middle name for another 895, an 84/16 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 238th, between Ali (902) and Benjamin (886).
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236
910Werner
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237
902Ali
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238895Maximilian
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239
886Benjamin
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240
884Henry