Emilian
From Latin, with a meaning that runs against its warm sound: "rival". It sits just inside Poland's top 1000 and has always been given only to boys, though the last couple of years have pulled the count down from its recent 2020s high.
Emilian Pronunciation
Emilian is pronounced e-MEEL-yahn (/ɛˈmiljan/).
What Emilian means
Where Emilian comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Emilian comes from Latin. It grew out of the Roman family name Aemilius and its longer form Aemilianus, which marked a person as belonging to that house. Linguists connect the root to aemulus, a word for a rival or a competitor, someone who strains to equal another. That is where the Polish gloss rywal comes from.
The Aemilii were among the oldest patrician clans of Rome, and they left behind consuls and a long paved road, the Via Aemilia. The road still exists. A boy called Emilian carries none of that politics forward. What stays is the older sense of the rival, the one measured against a standard set by someone else.
The name has a feminine counterpart, Emilianna, built on the same Latin stem. Picture a class register in a Polish school: Emilian filed under E, a few lines above an Emilianna in the same room. The imieniny gives each of them a day. And the meaning underneath stays plain, rywal, a rival.
When Emilian celebrates name day
Emilian appears 8 times in the Polish name day calendar, 2 of them as a main name, the first on 18 July.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Emilian
1 in 6299 men in Poland is named Emilian. 3,389 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #565 among male names.
Emilian's popularity over time
44 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #371 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2006.
Where Emilian is most popular
Emilian is most popular in Pomeranian, 66% above the national average (42 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Opole (+64%) and Subcarpathian (+59%). It is least common in Lublin and Warmian-Masurian, 72% and 68% below average respectively.
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Pomeranian42 boys born+66%
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Opole13 boys born+64%
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Subcarpathian33 boys born+59%
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Lower Silesian42 boys born+55%
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Silesian49 boys born+25%
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Greater Poland41 boys born+11%
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Lubusz8 boys born−6%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian17 boys born−10%
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Lesser Poland35 boys born−10%
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West Pomeranian13 boys born−11%
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Podlaskie9 boys born−21%
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Masovian44 boys born−28%
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Łódź13 boys born−40%
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Świętokrzyskie4 boys born−58%
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Warmian-Masurian4 boys born−68%
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Lublin5 boys born−72%
Emilian as a middle name
Emilian is a first name for 3,389 men in Poland and a middle name for another 1,477, a 70/30 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 193rd, between Patrick (1,494) and Andrew (1,447).
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#191 William1,504
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#192 Patrick1,494
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#193 Emilian1,477
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#194 Andrew1,447
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#195 Jeremi1,424