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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/).

Related names
Nadija Nadia
Alive in 2025
2,003
Newborns 2025
33
National rank
#704
Next name day
15 May
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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.

When Nadzieja celebrates name day

Nadzieja appears 3 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 15 May.

Next name day
15 May
Saturday in 2027
Next one in 202 days
Name days

The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.

Also celebrates

Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.

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.

People with the name Nadzieja 2019 → 2025
2,003 −461 since 2019
2020 2,425 −39
2021 2,296 −129
2022 2,198 −98
2023 2,122 −76
2024 2,051 −71
2025 2,003 −48

Nadzieja's popularity over time

33 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #429 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2002.

hover a bar to explore
33 newborns with the name Nadzieja in 2025
national rank #429 that year

Where parents choose Nadzieja

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.

Chosen most
  • Podlaskie
    +224%
    1 in 4,699 babies
  • Lubusz
    +84%
    1 in 8,276 babies
  • Pomeranian
    +76%
    1 in 8,666 babies
Chosen least
  • Łódź
    −76%
    1 in 63,359 babies
  • Subcarpathian
    −62%
    1 in 40,188 babies
  • Lublin
    −41%
    1 in 25,669 babies

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).

As a first name
2,003
As a middle name
1,098
first name 65% middle name 35%
Middle-name ranking women

Look up another name

Search the register, or step through the ranking one place at a time.

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