Seweryn
From Latin for "stern" or "serious", a name that wears its severity plainly. Fewer than 14,000 Poles carry it and meeting one is memorable, though it still turns up on newborns often enough to stay in circulation.
Seweryn Pronunciation
Seweryn is pronounced se-VE-rihn (/sɛˈvɛrɨn/).
What Seweryn means
Where Seweryn comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Seweryn descends from the Latin Severus, an adjective that meant stern, severe, and serious. Roman families wore it as a cognomen, and it later marked emperors, among them Septimius Severus, who ruled from 193. The Polish gloss stays close to the root: surowy, poważny.
That severity softened as the name moved through the Church. Several early saints bore the Latin form, and Poland took Seweryn as a Christian given name with its own place in the name-day calendar. By the nineteenth century it belonged to writers too, including the Romantic poet Seweryn Goszczyński, whose verse sat far from anything austere.
The feminine form is Seweryna. Boys still receive it, though less often now. Read out at an imieniny toast, or written on a form at the urząd, Seweryn still points back to Severus. Its plain sense has not drifted: surowy, poważny.
How many people are named Seweryn
1 in 1538 men in Poland is named Seweryn. 13,881 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #317 among male names.
Seweryn's popularity over time
98 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #249 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000.
Where Seweryn is most popular
Seweryn is most popular in Warmian-Masurian, 48% above the national average (43 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Silesian (+28%) and Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+26%). It is least common in Lubusz and Świętokrzyskie, 25% and 24% below average respectively.
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Warmian-Masurian43 boys born+48%
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Silesian118 boys born+28%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian56 boys born+26%
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Subcarpathian60 boys born+23%
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West Pomeranian41 boys born+20%
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Pomeranian67 boys born+12%
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Łódź51 boys born−1%
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Greater Poland82 boys born−6%
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Lower Silesian59 boys born−7%
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Opole16 boys born−14%
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Lublin35 boys born−16%
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Podlaskie22 boys born−17%
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Masovian118 boys born−18%
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Lesser Poland75 boys born−18%
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Świętokrzyskie17 boys born−24%
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Lubusz15 boys born−25%
Seweryn as a middle name
Seweryn is a first name for 13,881 men in Poland and a middle name for another 10,019, a 58/42 split — almost evenly. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 104th, between Bogumił (10,218) and Miłosz (9,867).
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102
10,687Igor
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103
10,218Bogumił
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10410,019Seweryn
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105
9,867Miłosz
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106
9,384Walenty
When Seweryn celebrates name day
Seweryn appears 5 times in the Polish name day calendar. The main date is 8 January.