Faust
From the Latin *faustus*, "fortunate, lucky", the root that also gives English *favour*. Most Poles have never met one: no boys were named Faust last year, and the whole country holds just seven men who carry it.
Faust Pronunciation
Faust is pronounced FAH-oost (/ˈfaust/).
What Faust means
Where Faust comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Faust comes from the Latin faustus, an adjective meaning fortunate or lucky. The word grew from favere, to favour, the same root that gives English its word favour. Romans used faustus as a cognomen, a personal byname. The dictator Sulla, who styled himself Felix, the lucky, named his son Faustus Cornelius Sulla. Two words for good fortune in one family.
The name promises luck. That promise sat uneasily on its most famous bearer. The Faust of German legend, the scholar who bargains with the devil, carries a name meaning fortunate while chasing a fortune that destroys him. Goethe and Marlowe both built plays on the irony. The promise did not hold.
In Poland the name stays rare and Latin to the ear. Read from a class register, Faust would turn heads before the teacher finished the roll. The short meaning holds underneath all of it: szczęśliwy, pomyślny, fortunate and lucky.
When Faust celebrates name day
Faust appears 7 times in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 15 February.
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 Faust
1 in 3049455 men in Poland is named Faust. 7 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #20434 among male names.
Faust as a middle name
Faust is a first name for 7 men in Poland and a middle name for another 12, a 37/63 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 2774th, between Farooq (12) and Felice (12).
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#2772 Fabricio12
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#2773 Farooq12
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#2774 Faust12
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#2775 Felice12
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#2776 Femi12