Mykhailo

Mykhailo is the Ukrainian form of the name known across Europe as Michael. Its short meaning arrives as a question, "who is like god." The answer is nobody. That refusal is built into the name, since the question expects no rival to God at all. The Slavic shape of it belongs to Ukraine, where the Archangel Michael has long served as patron of Kyiv. He rides across the city's coat of arms and crowns the golden domes of St. Michael's monastery.

The name has carried real weight in Ukrainian public life. Mykhailo Hrushevsky, the historian, chaired the Ukrainian Central Rada in 1917 and later appeared on the fifty-hryvnia banknote.

In a Polish class register you might now find a Mykhailo seated between a Michał and a Miłosz, the same archangel standing behind the first two. Michał keeps his imieniny on the twenty-ninth of September, the old feast of the archangels. The sense holds firm under every spelling: who is like god, któż jak bóg.