Nadzieja
Straightforwardly the Polish word for hope, Slavic to the root. Still rare enough that most Poles have never met one, but it's climbing: more girls carry it now than at any point last decade, and it sits just inside the top thousand.
Nadzieja Pronunciation
Nadzieja is pronounced nah-JE-yah (/naˈd͡ʑɛja/).
What Nadzieja means
Where Nadzieja comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Nadzieja is the Polish word for hope, and it is also a name. In everyday speech a person can lose hope or hold on to it, and the same word can name a child. The origin is Slavic. In Christian tradition the Slavic word was formed to translate the Greek Elpis and the Latin Spes, so the name and the plain noun grew up together.
Faith, Hope and Love appear in the old calendar, and Nadzieja is the Polish name for the second of them, remembered as a daughter of Saint Sophia and a martyr from the early Christian centuries. That is why the name has more than one name-day, most often the fifteenth of May and the thirtieth of September.
The name also travels. In Ukrainian it becomes Nadija, and the short form Nadia is heard well past any single border. At home the warm form is Nadzia, the one that fits on a class register beside a surname. The Polish sense stays plain: pomyślność and ufność, everyday hope.
How many people are named Nadzieja
1 in 11255 women in Poland is named Nadzieja. 2,003 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #704 among female names.
Nadzieja's popularity over time
33 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #429 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2002.
Where Nadzieja is most popular
Nadzieja is most popular in Podlaskie, 224% above the national average (14 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Lubusz (+84%) and Pomeranian (+76%). It is least common in Łódź and Subcarpathian, 76% and 62% below average respectively.
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Podlaskie14 girls born+224%
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Lubusz6 girls born+84%
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Pomeranian17 girls born+76%
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Opole5 girls born+65%
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Warmian-Masurian7 girls born+48%
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Masovian34 girls born+46%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian8 girls born+11%
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Silesian16 girls born+7%
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Greater Poland10 girls born−29%
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Lower Silesian7 girls born−32%
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Lesser Poland9 girls born−40%
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Lublin4 girls born−41%
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Subcarpathian3 girls born−62%
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Łódź2 girls born−76%
Nadzieja as a middle name
Nadzieja is a first name for 2,003 women in Poland and a middle name for another 1,098, a 65/35 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 244th, between Kunegunda (1,117) and Lila (1,087).
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242
1,119Anetta
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243
1,117Kunegunda
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2441,098Nadzieja
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245
1,087Lila
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246
1,079Andrea
When Nadzieja celebrates name day
Nadzieja appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar. The main date is 15 May.