Pawel

Paweł comes from the Latin Paulus, an old Roman cognomen that meant small or little. Its relatives turn up all over: Paul in English, Paolo in Italian, Pablo in Spanish. In Polish the sense held firm, mały and drobny, the plain reading of a word once handed to the shorter of two sons.

Much of the name's reach traces back to the apostle Paul, born Saul of Tarsus, who took the smaller Roman name and signed it across his letters to the early church. His feast on the twenty-ninth of June, shared with Saint Peter, is one of the imieniny that Polish Pawełs still mark. The written form has a mark of its own, the accented Paweł.

Open a school register in Kraków and the name is rarely alone. The feminine Paulina often sits nearby in the same class, drawn from the very same root. Three of them, one class. For a name that means little, Paweł has covered a great deal of ground, and it still points straight back to Paulus.