Cyryl

Cyryl comes from the Greek kyrios, meaning lord or master, and the short sense the name still holds is exactly that: lordly, masterful. The Greeks used kyrios for a man who held authority and command. From it came Kyrillos, which passed into Latin and then across Europe, arriving in Poland as Cyryl. The variant known in English is Cyril, one letter shorter and plainly the same name.

Its most famous bearer changed the Slavic world. Saint Cyril, who with his brother Methodius created the Glagolitic alphabet in the ninth century, took the name Cyril late in his life. The Cyrillic script, developed afterward by his disciples, was named in his honour, so a boy called Cyryl shares his name with the letters much of Eastern Europe still writes in.

On a Polish class register the name is short. Four consonants and a soft ending. It reads with authority and asks for nothing.

Where some names gather sweeter senses over the centuries, Cyryl stays close to where it began. The claim is the same one the Greek made: lordly, masterful, a name that means lord.