Mehdi
An Arabic name meaning "the guided one", one set on the right path. Fewer than 200 men in Poland carry it, so most people here will never meet one, and it goes almost entirely unrecorded among newborns now.
Mehdi Pronunciation
Mehdi is pronounced MEGH-dee (/ˈmɛɣdi/).
What Mehdi means
Where Mehdi comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Mehdi comes from the Arabic al-Mahdi, built on the root that means "to guide." The short sense follows directly from that: the guided one, prowadzony właściwą drogą. In Islamic tradition al-Mahdi is a redeemer expected at the end of time, and the name keeps that expectation attached to the people who bear it.
The Abbasid caliph Muhammad al-Mahdi ruled from Baghdad in the eighth century, so the name has a documented bearer very early. Mehdi is the spelling favored in Persian and across the Maghreb, while Arabic keeps Mahdi. The Moroccan footballer Mehdi Benatia made the form familiar to a wider European audience.
In Poland the name usually arrives through family ties to North Africa or the Middle East. A teacher reading a class register in Kraków might meet one Mehdi among the Jakubs and Wojciechs. It has no Polish name-day, so an imieniny gets improvised or skipped.
The meaning stays close to the origin. To guide is the verb underneath. Mehdi is the one led along the right road.
How many people are named Mehdi
1 in 119252 men in Poland is named Mehdi. 179 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2375 among male names.
Mehdi as a middle name
Mehdi is a first name for 179 men in Poland and a middle name for another 39, an 82/18 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1280th, between Kasimir (39) and Menachem (39).
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#1278 Jun39
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#1279 Kasimir39
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#1280 Mehdi39
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#1281 Menachem39
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#1282 Ozan39