Darko
One of Poland's rarest names: barely over a hundred men carry it, and the records show no boy given it since 2000. Slavic at root, from dar, "gift".
Darko Pronunciation
Darko is pronounced DAHR-ko (/ˈdarkɔ/).
What Darko means
Where Darko comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Darko begins with a small Slavic word: dar, meaning gift. The name grew from that root across the South Slavic lands, where a boy called Darko was named after something given. Linguists trace it to Proto-Slavic *darъ, the same root that gives Polish its everyday dar.
Real people fill the name. Darko Pančev, the Macedonian striker, was Europe's top scorer in the 1990/91 season with 34 goals for Red Star Belgrade. Darko Rundek, a Croatian songwriter, has recorded in his own language for decades. Both men wear a name that means, quite literally, gift.
In Poland the name stays rare. A Darko on a school register reads as a guest from further south, from Serbia or Croatia rather than Kraków. The meaning needs no translation. A Pole hears Darko and hears dar, the gift, right there in the first syllable.
How many people are named Darko
1 in 174969 men in Poland is named Darko. 122 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3038 among male names.
Darko as a middle name
Darko is a first name for 122 men in Poland and a middle name for another 5, a 96/4 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 4650th, between Danushka (5) and Darshana (5).
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#4648 Damilare5
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#4649 Danushka5
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#4650 Darko5
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#4651 Darshana5
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#4652 Delano5