Wisław
The masculine Wisław stayed rare while its feminine twin Wisława reached readers everywhere. At root it's an old Slavic compound: -sław for fame joined to a word for lord, so glorious lord.
Wisław Pronunciation
Wisław is pronounced VEES-wahf (/ˈviswaf/).
What Wisław means
Where Wisław comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Wisław grows from Slavic roots. Its second part, -sław, means glory or fame, the same element that closes Mieczysław, Bronisław, and Stanisław. The first syllable adds the sense of a lord or master. Read together, the name lands on a plain meaning: glorious lord, or in Polish sławny pan.
The name has a cross-gender twin. Wisława is the feminine form. It belongs to Wisława Szymborska, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. The feminine version reached far more readers than the masculine Wisław, which stayed rare.
On a Polish class register, Wisław sits among the old compound names. It signals a link to the early Slavic naming tradition. The short meaning survives every spelling: sławny pan, a lord known for fame.
How many people are named Wisław
1 in 2371799 men in Poland is named Wisław. 9 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #18130 among male names.
Wisław as a middle name
Wisław is a first name for 9 men in Poland and a middle name for another 12, a 43/57 split, almost evenly. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 2873rd, between Vuong (12) and Yaşar (12).
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#2871 Voytek12
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#2872 Vuong12
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#2873 Wisław12
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#2874 Yaşar12
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#2875 Yusein12