Edgar

Edgar begins as the Old English Eadgar, a fusion of ead, meaning wealth or riches, and gar, a spear. The short meaning came down to us intact: rich spear, or in Polish bogata włócznia. The origin is Germanic, the cultural home English.

England gave the name a real king. Edgar the Peaceful ruled from 959 and was crowned at Bath in 973, a ceremony that later shaped English coronation rite. Centuries on, Shakespeare handed the name to the loyal son in King Lear, and readers everywhere know Edgar Allan Poe, whose middle name honoured the family that raised him.

On a Polish class register, an Edgar still reads as slightly foreign, a name borrowed rather than native. It carries no diminutive of its own here. That plainness suits it.

The two halves stay legible after a thousand years. Wealth and a weapon, ead and gar, folded into one short name: rich spear.