Olga
Around 61,000 Polish women carry it, but the name is fading year by year: fewer newborn girls now than a generation ago. Olga is the East Slavic form of an old name meaning "holy", carried south to the Rus by Norse traders as Helga.
Olga Pronunciation
Olga is pronounced OL-gah (/ˈɔlga/).
What Olga means
Where Olga comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Olga is the East Slavic form of a name that means holy, and it reached the Slavs by an unusual road. The Varangians, Norse traders and warriors who settled along the rivers of the Rus, carried the name Helga south. Among the Slavs it settled into Olga, and the sense of holy, in Polish święta, travelled with it.
The first Olga to fill the history books ruled Kiev in the tenth century. After her husband died, she governed as regent, then accepted Christian baptism in Constantinople and was later made a saint. So the word holy and the name grew close over her lifetime.
Volha is the Belarusian twin. Anyone tracing a family across the old eastern borderlands should know both spellings. In Poland the name keeps its imieniny in July, and you will still find an Olga on a school register, filed among the O names, meaning holy.
How many people are named Olga
1 in 368 women in Poland is named Olga. 61,318 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #163 among female names.
Olga's popularity over time
120 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #236 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000. Still the #163 name among living women, even as it slips to #236 among newborns.
Where Olga is most popular
Olga is most popular in Greater Poland, 89% above the national average (367 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+87%) and Lesser Poland (+20%). It is least common in Łódź and West Pomeranian, 45% and 42% below average respectively.
-
Greater Poland367 girls born+89%
-
Kuyavian-Pomeranian185 girls born+87%
-
Lesser Poland245 girls born+20%
-
Pomeranian154 girls born+16%
-
Podlaskie66 girls born+11%
-
Silesian220 girls born+7%
-
Subcarpathian95 girls born−13%
-
Warmian-Masurian54 girls born−17%
-
Lublin72 girls born−22%
-
Lubusz35 girls born−22%
-
Lower Silesian101 girls born−29%
-
Masovian195 girls born−39%
-
Opole25 girls born−40%
-
Świętokrzyskie30 girls born−40%
-
West Pomeranian44 girls born−42%
-
Łódź63 girls born−45%
Olga as a middle name
Olga is a first name for 61,318 women in Poland and a middle name for another 16,119, a 79/21 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 93rd, between Bernadeta (16,482) and Anastazja (16,036).
When Olga celebrates name day
Olga appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar. The main date is 11 July.