Philip

Philip comes from the Greek Philippos, a compound of philos, meaning friend or loving, and hippos, a horse. The literal sense is friend of horses. Among the Greeks a horse signalled wealth and rank, so the name pointed to households that could afford to keep and ride them.

History gave the name early muscle. Philip II of Macedon built the army his son Alexander would drive across the known world, and the orator Demosthenes attacked him in speeches still called the Philippics. Then came the apostle Philip, and the name travelled with the church into most of Europe. In English it settled without fuss, carried by Sir Philip Sidney, the Elizabethan poet and soldier, and in the last century by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

In Poland the name shifts by one letter and becomes Filip, the form a teacher calls out from the class register. The spelling is plainer. The meaning holds: Filip is still the friend of horses, from hippos, the Greek word for horse.