Vadim
A Slavic name that carries the sense of fighting and defending. In Poland it stays rare: fewer than 2,000 men answer to it, and the handful of boys given it each year keeps shrinking.
Vadim Pronunciation
What Vadim means
Where Vadim comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Vadim rises out of Slavic ground and took its clearest shape in Russian. The short meaning is unusually sharp for a first name: to accuse, to argue. Many scholars connect it to the old Slavic verb vaditi, which meant to dispute or to lay a charge against someone.
The oldest famous bearer is Vadim the Bold, a Novgorod figure named in the Russian chronicles. He led a revolt against Rurik around 864 and lost. Centuries later Vasily Zhukovsky made a Vadim the hero of a Romantic poem, and the rebel who quarrels with a ruler settled in as a literary type. The meaning stayed combative.
On a Polish class register today the name sits with no diminutive and no feminine pair, since the given forms list none. A child called Vadim in Poland holds a plainly Russian first name over a Slavic root. What it means underneath is old and unsoftened: to argue, to accuse.
How many people are named Vadim
1 in 12006 men in Poland is named Vadim. 1,778 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #742 among male names.
Vadim's popularity over time
3 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #1381 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2021. Still the #742 name among living men, even as it slips to #1381 among newborns.
Where Vadim is most popular
Vadim is most popular in Lower Silesian, 489% above the national average (3 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Greater Poland (+187%) and Masovian (+74%).
-
Lower Silesian3 boys born+489%
-
Greater Poland2 boys born+187%
-
Masovian2 boys born+74%
Vadim as a middle name
Vadim is a first name for 1,778 men in Poland and a middle name for another 23, a 99/1 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1833rd, between Tawanda (23) and Vitali (23).
-
#1831 Sędzimir23
-
#1832 Tawanda23
-
#1833 Vadim23
-
#1834 Vitali23
-
#1835 Wade23