Askar
Carries the sense of "soldier" or "army", by way of Arabic. In Poland it stays rare: only about 125 men answer to it, and most Poles have never met one.
Askar Pronunciation
Askar is pronounced AHS-kahr (/ˈaskar/).
What Askar means
Where Askar comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Askar comes from Arabic. There the word عسكر, 'askar, names an army or a body of troops. It rarely stayed in one place. Swahili took from it askari, the soldier and the armed guard, and colonial armies in East Africa drilled men they called askari well into the twentieth century. Through the related Persian lashkar, older English gained lascar for a hired sailor. The name belongs to a family of military words that moved along trade routes and coastlines.
In Polish the meaning stays close to the root: wojownik, żołnierz. Askar is not a saint's name, so it has no fixed day in the calendar of imieniny. The name hands a Polish boy a plain word for a soldier.
On a school class register in Poland, Askar sits oddly beside Kacper and Filip. That difference is the point. The Arabic 'askar still means army.
How many people are named Askar
1 in 170770 men in Poland is named Askar. 125 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2988 among male names.
Askar as a middle name
Askar is a first name for 125 men in Poland and a middle name for another 3, a 98/2 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 6010th, between Ashvin (3) and Atalay (3).
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#6008 Ashu3
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#6009 Ashvin3
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#6010 Askar3
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#6011 Atalay3
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#6012 Atanas3