Radu
From the Slavic root rad-, the same piece behind the Polish word radość, joy: it carries the plain sense of happy and willing. Fewer than 300 men in Poland use it, so most Poles have never met one.
Radu Pronunciation
Radu is pronounced RAH-doo (/ˈradu/).
What Radu means
Where Radu comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Radu comes from a Slavic root meaning glad and willing, the same root that stands behind the Polish word radość, joy. Follow the name back far enough and you reach one plain idea, a person who is glad. The short meaning keeps to that ground: happy and willing. Nothing in it drifts toward metaphor.
The Slavic rad- shows up widely. You can hear it in radość and in older Polish names built from the same piece, like Radosław, where the root joins gladness to glory, and Radomir, where it joins gladness to peace. Radu holds onto the root alone, with no diminutive and no variant to soften it. It has no saint's day either.
Picture a class register at the start of term, a teacher reading down the list until Radu answers. The name asks for nothing unusual on the page. It sits there short and level. And it still means what its root meant long ago, happy and willing.
How many people are named Radu
1 in 74119 men in Poland is named Radu. 288 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1789 among male names.
Radu as a middle name
Radu is a first name for 288 men in Poland and a middle name for another 10, a 97/3 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 3170th, between Przemił (10) and Rafik (10).
-
#3168 Prometeusz10
-
#3169 Przemił10
-
#3170 Radu10
-
#3171 Rafik10
-
#3172 Rayen10