Bastian
A Latin name meaning "venerable, revered". In Poland it stays rare and exclusively male: fewer than 500 men carry it, so most Poles have never met one.
Bastian Pronunciation
Bastian is pronounced BAHST-yahn (/ˈbastjan/).
What Bastian means
Where Bastian comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Bastian is the German short form of Sebastian, and both trace back to the Latin Sebastianus. Latin is where the name enters the record, and the sense that clings to it, venerable and revered, has followed it down long registers of saints and schoolboys. Germans clipped the longer name to something faster to say. Bastian was the result.
German readers know the name best from Michael Ende's Die unendliche Geschichte, whose young hero Bastian Balthazar Bux reads himself so deeply into the book he is holding that he steps inside the story. That fictional Bastian gave the name a fresh burst of life across German-speaking homes in the 1980s.
On a Polish class register, Bastian sits near the Sebastians and shares their imieniny on 20 January. The old sense still holds: venerable, revered.
How many people are named Bastian
1 in 43211 men in Poland is named Bastian. 494 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1321 among male names.
Bastian's popularity over time
14 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #602 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2005.
Where parents choose Bastian
Bastian is most popular in Lower Silesian, 166% above the national average (18 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+112%) and Greater Poland (+30%). It is least common in Lublin and Pomeranian, 55% and 53% below average respectively.
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Lower Silesian
+166%1 in 8,730 babies
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian
+112%1 in 10,938 babies
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Greater Poland
+30%1 in 17,937 babies
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Lublin
−55%1 in 51,338 babies
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Pomeranian
−53%1 in 49,107 babies
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Lesser Poland
−49%1 in 45,383 babies
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Lower Silesian+166% 18 born1 in 8,730 babies+166%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian+112% 10 born1 in 10,938 babies+112%
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Greater Poland+30% 12 born1 in 17,937 babies+30%
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Subcarpathian+16% 6 born1 in 20,094 babies+16%
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West Pomeranian+10% 4 born1 in 21,106 babies+10%
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Opole+1% 2 born1 in 23,048 babies+1%
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Lubusz−6% 2 born1 in 24,829 babies−6%
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Łódź−8% 5 born1 in 25,344 babies−8%
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Masovian−15% 13 born1 in 27,251 babies−15%
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Podlaskie−29% 2 born1 in 32,893 babies−29%
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Silesian−29% 7 born1 in 32,512 babies−29%
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Warmian-Masurian−35% 2 born1 in 35,897 babies−35%
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Lesser Poland−49% 5 born1 in 45,383 babies−49%
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Pomeranian−53% 3 born1 in 49,107 babies−53%
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Lublin−55% 2 born1 in 51,338 babies−55%
Bastian as a middle name
Bastian is a first name for 494 men in Poland and a middle name for another 112, an 82/18 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 662nd, between Tom (113) and Carl (112).
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#660 Julius113
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#661 Tom113
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#662 Bastian112
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#663 Carl112
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#664 Matteo112