Mściwoj
A Slavic name from two old roots: *mścić*, to avenge, and *woj*, a warrior or war-band. It's about as rare as a Polish name gets, with only around ten men alive who carry it, and none given to newborns in years.
Mściwoj Pronunciation
Mściwoj is pronounced MSHCHEE-voy (/ˈmɕt͡ɕivɔj/).
What Mściwoj means
Where Mściwoj comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Mściwoj is a Slavic name built from two old roots. The first is mścić, to avenge. The second is woj, a warrior or a band of fighting men. Put together they give something close to "one who avenges his warriors," the sense preserved in the Polish gloss mściciel. This is not sentiment layered on later. The meaning sits in the two words that form the name.
The most documented bearer is a duke. Mściwoj II ruled Gdańsk from 1270 and died on 25 December 1294 ([Wikipedia](https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%9Bciwoj_II)). In the chronicles his name also appears as Mszczuj, and in the Pomeranian records as Mestwin, the same man written three ways by different scribes.
That range of spellings tells you how old the name is. It belongs to the era before Christian names crowded the Polish register.
A boy called Mściwoj today carries a piece of that early vocabulary. On a school register the name stands out among the Kacpers and Szymons. Read it slowly and the two parts separate again: mścić and woj, the avenger and the warrior.
How many people are named Mściwoj
1 in 2134619 men in Poland is named Mściwoj. 10 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #16406 among male names.
Mściwoj as a middle name
Mściwoj is a first name for 10 men in Poland and a middle name for another 36, a 22/78 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1357th, between Mostafa (36) and Nasser (36).
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#1355 Moses36
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#1356 Mostafa36
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#1357 Mściwoj36
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#1358 Nasser36
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#1359 Orion36