Szczepan

Szczepan comes from the Greek stephanos, a word for a crown or a wreath, the sort plaited from laurel and set on a victor's head. Through Latin Stephanus it spread across Europe and broke into forms that still travel in company: Stephen in English, Stefan closer to home. Polish reshaped the sound until it arrived at something blunt and entirely its own.

The Szczepan most Poles picture is Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, whose feast falls on 26 December. That fixes the name in the calendar. On the second day of Christmas, the imieniny of every Szczepan lands while the holiday is still in full swing, so the name-day and the feast share a table at the urząd and in the parish register alike.

The wreath came first. Before it stood for a royal crown, stephanos was the prize a Greek runner won at the games, a mark of someone singled out and honoured. Read that way, the name keeps its older sense of the one who is crowned. Behind the Polish spelling sits the same Greek root: crown, wreath.