Sandro

Sandro comes to us from Italy, though its origin is Greek. It is the Italian short form of Alessandro, which is Italy's own version of the Greek Alexandros. That older name binds two Greek words: alexein, to defend, and andros, of a man. So the meaning that has followed Sandro is defender of men.

In Florence the most famous bearer was the painter Sandro Botticelli, born around 1445, whose Birth of Venus still hangs in the Uffizi. His baptismal name was Alessandro, and Sandro was the everyday form the people around him used. That is how the name usually works, a long Alessandro on documents and a short Sandro among friends.

A Polish child called Sandro will hear it read out at the start of a school class register, sitting among more familiar Polish forms. The name has no diminutives or variants of its own here. It stands alone. What remains is the sense given to it in Greek, defender of men, obrońca ludzi.