Ryan

Ryan comes from Ireland, and its roots are Celtic. The name grew out of the old surname Ó Riain, meaning a descendant of Rían, and that older name is usually traced to the Irish word rí, king. Add a small diminutive ending and you reach the sense that has followed the name for centuries. Little king. In Polish, mały król.

For most of its history Ryan was a surname carried by Irish families. Only in the twentieth century did English speakers start giving it as a first name, and from there it travelled. Poland took it in too.

Picture a class register in a Gdańsk primary school, where a boy named Ryan answers to a Celtic word for king without anyone in the room reaching for a crown. The name arrived with no variants and no Polish diminutives, so it stays as it came: four letters, one meaning, mały król.