René
From the Latin *renatus*, "reborn", a name France made its own and kept for centuries. In Poland it stays rare: only about 240 people carry it, nearly all of them men.
René Pronunciation
René is pronounced RENÉ (/rɛné/).
What René means
Where René comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
René descends from the Latin renatus, "reborn." Early Christian writers read that word through baptism, the moment a person was said to begin a second life, and the name kept that sense as it moved into French use.
In France it settled as a masculine given name and stayed there for centuries. The philosopher René Descartes carried it in the seventeenth century, and in his Latin works he signed himself Renatus, the very root of the name. On a Polish class register the accent over the first e marks it out at once, a French shape among Polish ones.
The meaning is reborn. In Polish that comes out as odrodzony, a word tied to spring and to fresh starts. Trace the name back far enough and you reach renatus, the Latin root it has never shaken off.
How many people are named René
1 in 90450 men in Poland is named René. 239 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2007 among male names.
René as a middle name
René is a first name for 239 men in Poland and a middle name for another 137, a 64/36 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 601st, between Mohammad (138) and Brandon (136).
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#599 Guillermo138
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#600 Mohammad138
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#601 René137
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#602 Brandon136
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#603 Juan136