Wasilij
A Russian form built on the Greek word for "royal". Just 31 men in Poland carry it, and the records since 2000 show no newborns in any year.
Wasilij Pronunciation
Wasilij is pronounced vah-SHEE-leey (/vaˈɕilij/).
What Wasilij means
Where Wasilij comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Wasilij grows from Greek soil. The root is basileus, the Greek word for king, which gave the personal name Basileios and its plain sense of royal, kingly. So the meaning here is no later gloss. It sits in the origin.
In Polish the name reads as Russian. Wasilij is the form a Polish register keeps for a Vasily from the East, and readers hear Moscow or a Russian novel in it before they hear Athens. Basil the Great, the fourth-century bishop of Caesarea, carried the Greek original, and Orthodox families passed his name down for centuries.
Picture a school register in a border town. The teacher reaches Wasilij and pauses one beat on the ending. That ending marks it. The name is Greek by birth, kingly by meaning, and Russian by the company it keeps on a Polish page, where its short sense stays królewski.
How many people are named Wasilij
1 in 688587 men in Poland is named Wasilij. 31 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #7406 among male names.
Wasilij as a middle name
Wasilij is a first name for 31 men in Poland and a middle name for another 5, an 86/14 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 5103rd, between Washington (5) and Wasim (5).
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#5101 Waqas5
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#5102 Washington5
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#5103 Wasilij5
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#5104 Wasim5
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#5105 Wenencjusz5