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Pelin

The Slavic root means "wormwood", the bitter herb behind absinthe. Fewer than 40 Polish women carry it, and none have been given it this century: most Poles have never met one.

Pelin Pronunciation

Pelin is pronounced PE-leen (/ˈpɛlin/).

Alive in 2025
37
National rank
#6501

What Pelin means

Where Pelin comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.

Pelin travels into Turkish from a Slavic root. The old Slavic pelynъ gave Polish its word piołun, wormwood, and the same root moved south to become the Turkish given name Pelin. The meaning holds across the border. It is the bitter herb, wormwood, the plant that flavors absinthe and older medicine.

In Turkey the name reads as modern. It belongs to actresses and pop singers born in recent decades, and its Slavic ancestry stays out of sight for most who answer to it. The actress Pelin Karahan, born in 1984, is one bearer. Few speakers connect Pelin to the Polish piołun on a herbalist's shelf, though the two are the same word.

On a Polish lista obecności the name would look imported. The root beneath it is native. Wormwood, piołun, pelin: one plant, three spellings.

How many people are named Pelin

1 in 609293 women in Poland is named Pelin. 37 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #6501 among female names.

People with the name Pelin 2019 → 2025
37 +6 since 2019
2020 32 +1
2021 31 -1
2022 31 0
2023 35 +4
2024 36 +1
2025 37 +1

Pelin as a middle name

Pelin is a first name for 37 women in Poland and a middle name for another 5, an 88/12 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 3801st, between Parvin (5) and Pernilla (5).

As a first name
37
As a middle name
5
first name 88% middle name 12%

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