Maksim
From the Latin for "greatest". Around 8,000 Polish men carry it, and with only a couple dozen boys given the name each year now, meeting one stays memorable.
Maksim Pronunciation
Maksim is pronounced MAHK-sheem (/ˈmakɕim/).
What Maksim means
Where Maksim comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Maksim comes from the Latin Maximus, meaning greatest, or największy in Polish. The Roman name marked a person as the largest or the foremost, and it moved into the Christian world through saints and emperors before it ever reached Slavic ground.
In Russia the name settled deeply. The writer Aleksei Peshkov took Maksim Gorky as his pen name, and that Maksim became one of the most recognizable in Russian letters. The Latin root stayed intact even as the spelling turned Cyrillic.
The longer relative Maksymilian holds the same origin, from Maximilianus, and on a Polish school register the two can sit only a few desks apart. A teacher reading the roll might reach Maksim early and Maksymilian a moment later. Whichever form a child carries, the meaning holds at największy, greatest.
How many people are named Maksim
1 in 2709 men in Poland is named Maksim. 7,884 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #403 among male names.
Maksim's popularity over time
21 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #502 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2002. Still the #403 name among living men, even as it slips to #502 among newborns.
Where Maksim is most popular
Maksim is most popular in Lower Silesian, 132% above the national average (30 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Greater Poland (+52%) and Masovian (+13%). It is least common in Subcarpathian and Lublin, 80% and 76% below average respectively.
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Lower Silesian30 boys born+132%
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Greater Poland27 boys born+52%
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Masovian33 boys born+13%
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West Pomeranian7 boys born+1%
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Lubusz4 boys born−2%
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Lesser Poland18 boys born−4%
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Łódź10 boys born−4%
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Silesian18 boys born−4%
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Podlaskie5 boys born−8%
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Pomeranian11 boys born−9%
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Świętokrzyskie3 boys born−34%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian5 boys born−45%
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Warmian-Masurian3 boys born−49%
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Lublin2 boys born−76%
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Subcarpathian2 boys born−80%
Maksim as a middle name
Maksim is a first name for 7,884 men in Poland and a middle name for another 23, a 100/0 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1811th, between Ludovic (23) and Marin (23).
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1809
23Leander
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1810
23Ludovic
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181123Maksim
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1812
23Marin
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1813
23Michail