Matsvei
A Hebrew name meaning "gift of god". It stays rare in Poland: fewer than 600 men carry it, and most people here have never met one, though a few boys still get it each year.
Matsvei Pronunciation
What Matsvei means
Where Matsvei comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Matsvei begins in Hebrew, in the name Mattityahu, which meant gift of God. That older name joined mattat, a gift, to a shortened form of the divine name. Latin reshaped it into Matthaeus, and from there the name travelled both west and east across Europe.
The eastern road matters here. Matsvei is the shape Mattityahu took among Belarusian and East Slavic speakers, a cousin of the Polish Mateusz and the English Matthew. Matthew the Evangelist, credited with the first Gospel, carried the same root and kept the name in use across many centuries.
On a Polish class register the spelling Matsvei stands out beside a column of Mateusz entries, and the eye stops on it. The letters look borrowed, because they follow an eastern way of hearing the name. One fact about it stays fixed regardless: Matsvei says gift of God.
How many people are named Matsvei
1 in 35756 men in Poland is named Matsvei. 597 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1220 among male names.
Matsvei's popularity over time
2 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #1705 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2023. Still the #1220 name among living men, even as it slips to #1705 among newborns.