Bolesława
Fewer than 2,000 Polish women carry it, and lately no newborn girls have taken it at all: most Poles have never met one. The name is Slavic, the feminine of Bolesław, built on a root meaning "great glory".
Bolesława Pronunciation
Bolesława is pronounced bo-les-WAH-vah (/bɔlɛsˈwava/).
What Bolesława means
Where Bolesława comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Bolesława is the feminine form of Bolesław, an old Slavic name built from two roots. The first, bole, means more or greater. The second, sław, means glory. Put together, they were understood as great glory, więcej sławy in Polish.
For a long time the masculine Bolesław stayed close to the Piast dynasty. Bolesław the Brave, crowned Poland's first king, fixed it in the national memory, and the feminine form followed in step. Where he promised conquest, Bolesława offered the same wide renown to a daughter. The warmer diminutive is Bolek.
Today the name is rare. On the nineteenth of August, its name-day, an imieniny wish still reaches the few Bolesławas left on a school register. The name reads now as it did then: great glory.
How many people are named Bolesława
1 in 12081 women in Poland is named Bolesława. 1,866 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #726 among female names.
Bolesława as a middle name
Bolesława is a first name for 1,866 women in Poland and a middle name for another 1,584, a 54/46 split — almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 213th, between Vanessa (1,602) and Marzenna (1,581).
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211
1,602Ada
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212
1,602Vanessa
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2131,584Bolesława
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214
1,581Marzenna
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215
1,564Leonarda