Orest
From the Greek for "of the mountains", carried in Poland mostly through Ukrainian families. Most Poles have never met an Orest, but it's climbing: more boys got it last year than in years past, and it stays strictly a boy's name.
Orest Pronunciation
Orest is pronounced O-rest (/ˈɔrɛst/).
What Orest means
Where Orest comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Orest reaches Polish through Ukrainian, where it has long been at home. The root is Greek: Orestes, built on oros, the word for mountain. So the short meaning holds, one of the mountains, a dweller of high ground.
Greek myth gave the name its first famous bearer. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, avenged his father and was hounded by the Furies afterward, a figure Aeschylus set on stage in the Oresteia. That weight travelled east and stayed.
In Ukraine the name kept its footing while it grew rare in Poland. There are no soft diminutives on the official record here, no cross-gender pair. Read a class register in a border town and Orest stands alone, unhurried by nicknames.
A boy called Orest carries a mountain in five letters. The Greek oros is still there under the Polish spelling, and the meaning stays plain: mieszkaniec gór, one of the mountains.
How many people are named Orest
1 in 9237 men in Poland is named Orest. 2,311 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #663 among male names.
Orest's popularity over time
45 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #370 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2010.
Where Orest is most popular
Orest is most popular in Lower Silesian, 108% above the national average (32 boys born 2019–2025), followed by West Pomeranian (+33%) and Masovian (+29%). It is least common in Lublin and Subcarpathian, 60% and 58% below average respectively.
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Lower Silesian32 boys born+108%
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West Pomeranian11 boys born+33%
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Masovian45 boys born+29%
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Warmian-Masurian9 boys born+28%
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Greater Poland26 boys born+23%
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Lesser Poland26 boys born+17%
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Pomeranian16 boys born+11%
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Silesian19 boys born−15%
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Lubusz3 boys born−38%
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Podlaskie4 boys born−38%
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Łódź7 boys born−44%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian5 boys born−53%
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Subcarpathian5 boys born−58%
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Lublin4 boys born−60%
Orest as a middle name
Orest is a first name for 2,311 men in Poland and a middle name for another 206, a 92/8 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 481st, between Mauricio (206) and Abraham (205).
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479
206Jason
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480
206Mauricio
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481206Orest
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482
205Abraham
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483
202Rao