Jasper

Jasper reaches back to the Greek iaspis, the name of a speckled stone prized across the ancient world. English drew Jasper from that root and settled on the meaning "treasurer," in Polish przynoszący skarb. The sense of treasure came later, through Caspar, the traditional name of one of the three kings who brought gold to Bethlehem. The link is old.

In English the name reads as warm and a little old-fashioned. It turns up in Dickens and in Victorian parish records, a name once given to gardeners, clerks, and men who kept the count of what others owned. That last work sits close to the meaning it now holds.

On a Polish class register today, Jasper sits among the Antonis and Franciszeks, an English arrival still rare enough to draw a second look at the urząd. Behind it stand the stone iaspis and the plain sense of treasurer.