Maxwell
New to Poland and climbing: fewer than 150 people carry it, all of them male, and more boys got it last year than in most years past. From Germanic roots, it means Mack's stream, or well.
Maxwell Pronunciation
What Maxwell means
Where Maxwell comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Maxwell began as a place before it was a person. On the River Tweed, near Kelso in the Scottish Borders, a pool in the river was known as Maccus's wiel, the stream or well belonging to a man called Maccus. His name came out of the Germanic and Norse world, a relative of Magnus, and the small settlement that grew beside the water took the name along.
For centuries Maxwell moved as a surname. Families carried it, and the Scottish house of Clan Maxwell made it widely known across the Borders. Its use as a first name is comparatively recent, and it arrived with a plain English sense of belonging and standing.
The meaning underneath stayed literal. Mack's stream, the well by the water.
Picture a class register in a Kraków primary school, one Maxwell listed between a Maksymilian and a Mikołaj. The name looks foreign and settled at the same moment. What it still names is that pool on the Tweed.
How many people are named Maxwell
1 in 143263 men in Poland is named Maxwell. 149 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2661 among male names.
Maxwell's popularity over time
3 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #1300 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2024.
Where parents choose Maxwell
Maxwell is most popular in Masovian, 510% above the national average (2 boys born 2019–2025).
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Masovian
+510%1 in 177,133 babies
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Masovian+510% 2 born1 in 177,133 babies+510%
Maxwell as a middle name
Maxwell is a first name for 149 men in Poland and a middle name for another 64, a 70/30 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 909th, between Maximiliano (64) and Nikolaus (64).
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#907 Luís64
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#908 Maximiliano64
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#909 Maxwell64
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#910 Nikolaus64
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#911 Quang64