Telman
A first name taken straight from a surname, that of Ernst Thälmann. Only around 70 men in Poland carry it, few enough that most people here have never met one.
Telman Pronunciation
Telman is pronounced TEL-mahn (/ˈtɛlman/).
What Telman means
Where Telman comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name Telman comes from a German surname, Thälmann. Ernst Thälmann led the Communist Party of Germany until police arrested him in 1933. He spent eleven years in prison and was shot at Buchenwald in 1944. His surname outlived him as a first name.
That is the whole meaning of Telman: named after Ernst Thälmann. The root is Germanic, but the name is young. It spread after 1944 across the Soviet Union, and it took hold in Azerbaijan, where Telman remains a normal man's name. There is no saint behind it and no name-day. The honour it records is political.
A Polish child named Telman meets the name on a class register, one word among Piotr and Jan. Teachers rarely trace it back to Hamburg. Behind the spelling sits a real man, the German communist Ernst Thälmann, and the surname that became a given name.
How many people are named Telman
1 in 296475 men in Poland is named Telman. 72 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #4257 among male names.