Adelajda
Germanic at root, with a meaning that reads like a blessing: "noble kind". It stays rare in Poland: most people here have never met an Adelajda, and the ones given the name are all girls.
Adelajda Pronunciation
Adelajda is pronounced ah-de-LAHY-dah (/adɛˈlajda/).
What Adelajda means
Where Adelajda comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Adelajda grows from Germanic roots. The old form, Adalheidis, joins adal, meaning noble, with heid, a word for kind or sort. Put together, they give the sense that the Polish gloss keeps, szlachetnego rodu, of a noble kind.
One woman carried that meaning far. Adelaide of Italy, born around 931, became Holy Roman Empress and later a saint, and the Church marks her on the sixteenth of December, which is Adelajda's name-day in Poland. Her Latin chronicles still call her Adalheidis, the same shape the Polish name descends from.
In Polish, the name shortens and softens. Adela and Adel stand as variants, while Adelka and Ada are the everyday diminutives a child actually answers to. On a school class register the full Adelajda might sit in the margin, with Ada scribbled beside it. The long form and the small Ada trace back to one word for noble.
When Adelajda celebrates name day
Adelajda appears 6 times in the Polish name day calendar, 2 of them as a main name, the first on 5 February.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Adelajda
1 in 6615 women in Poland is named Adelajda. 3,408 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #564 among female names.
Adelajda's popularity over time
7 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #787 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2012. Still the #564 name among living women, even as it slips to #787 among newborns.
Where Adelajda is most popular
Adelajda is most popular in Świętokrzyskie, 169% above the national average (2 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Lesser Poland (+163%) and Masovian (+110%).
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Świętokrzyskie2 girls born+169%
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Lesser Poland8 girls born+163%
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Masovian10 girls born+110%
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Lower Silesian3 girls born+42%
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Silesian4 girls born+31%
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Pomeranian2 girls born+1%
Adelajda as a middle name
Adelajda is a first name for 3,408 women in Poland and a middle name for another 1,646, a 67/33 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 207th, between Marcela (1,659) and Rose (1,637).
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#205 Ida1,675
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#206 Marcela1,659
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#207 Adelajda1,646
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#208 Rose1,637
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#209 Sofia1,614