Luigi

Luigi is the Italian form of the Latin Ludovicus, and it reaches Polish ears already sounding like a song from further south. The name has long been glossed as "famous warrior", słynny wojownik in Polish, a sense that fit the medieval kings and dukes who wore its Latin cousins across Europe.

Italy gave the name its best-known bearer. San Luigi Gonzaga, born in 1568, gave up a marquis's inheritance to become a Jesuit and died at twenty-three while nursing plague victims in Rome. His feast falls on 21 June, and he became a patron of students and the young.

On a Polish class register, Luigi stands out at once. It arrives without diminutives or variants of its own, one clear shape and no Polonised cousin. That plainness suits a name whose Latin root already promises a famous warrior.