Kornel

Kornel comes from Latin, from the Roman family name Cornelius, and behind that name sits the word cornu, a horn. In Polish the short meaning is plain: róg. The Cornelii were among the leading houses of the Roman Republic, and the name outlasted them. One branch, the Scipiones, gave Rome its generals. Later it passed into the church calendar through Cornelius, the third-century pope and martyr whose feast falls on the sixteenth of September. That day is Kornel's imieniny in Poland.

The name keeps feminine company. Cornelia and its Polish spelling Kornelia grew from the same root, and Nela works as a soft short form for either. Kornel stays nearer the Latin.

Polish readers know one Kornel above the rest. Kornel Makuszyński wrote Koziołek Matołek and Awantura o Basię, and generations of children learned to read with him. The old Roman horn still stands under all of it, cornu turned into róg.