Pāvels
Only about 40 men in Poland carry it, so most people here have never met one, and no boys have been given it in years. A Latin name at root, meaning "small, humble", a cousin of Paweł.
Pāvels Pronunciation
What Pāvels means
Where Pāvels comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Pāvels traces back to the Latin Paulus, a Roman cognomen that meant small or little. The word began as a plain description of size. Over centuries it settled into a name people wore with some pride. The Polish variant Paweł carries the same root and the same short meaning, small and humble.
Saint Paul the Apostle did much to spread the name across Europe. He was born Saul and took the name Paulus, and churches from Rome to Kraków kept it alive. His feast falls on 29 June, shared with Peter, and that date anchors the imieniny for many a Paweł today.
A school register in Poland will still hold a Pāvels or a Paweł. The Latin sense of small never shamed anyone. It reads instead as humble, close to the ground, unshowy. The origin stays fixed in Paulus: small.
How many people are named Pāvels
1 in 533655 men in Poland is named Pāvels. 40 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #6155 among male names.