Anatoly
From the Greek for "sunrise". Only about 120 men in Poland carry it, and it reaches almost no newborns now, so most Poles have never met one.
Anatoly Pronunciation
Anatoly is pronounced ah-nah-TO-lih (/anaˈtɔlɨ/).
What Anatoly means
Where Anatoly comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Anatoly begins in Greek. The word anatolē meant sunrise, the place on the horizon where the sun climbs, and it named Anatolia, the eastern land. From it came Anatolios, borne by early bishops and saints, and the name moved north into Russian use, where it settled and stayed.
In Russia it grew common enough to belong to chess masters and composers. Anatoly Karpov made it known to people who never opened a Greek lexicon, and the older sense of first light stayed under the sound the whole time.
Polish took the name in as Anatol, trimming the Russian ending, and gave it the homely short form Tolek. On a school register today an Anatol reads as older, a little formal, standing apart from the Kacpers and Szymons around him. He has a name-day too, chiefly the third of July. What sits beneath every one of these forms does not change: sunrise.
How many people are named Anatoly
1 in 180900 men in Poland is named Anatoly. 118 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3105 among male names.