Yuriy
The Ukrainian and Russian form of a Greek name meaning "farmer". In Poland it stays rare: around 3,000 people carry it, almost all men, and most Poles will never meet one.
Yuriy Pronunciation
Yuriy is pronounced ih-OOR-yih (/ɨˈurjɨ/).
What Yuriy means
Where Yuriy comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name Yuriy comes from the Greek Georgios, built from ge, meaning earth, and ergon, meaning work. A georgos was a farmer, someone who worked the soil. That plain meaning, rolnik in Polish, sits under a name now tied to Ukrainian and Russian tradition, where Yuriy became one of the common Slavic forms of George.
In Kyiv and Moscow the name reaches back centuries. Yuriy Dolgorukiy, a prince of the twelfth century, is credited in the chronicles with founding Moscow around 1147. The form kept its farmer's root even as it settled on princes and soldiers.
On a Polish class register, Yuriy sits a few lines from Jerzy, the two names sharing one Greek grandfather. The meaning holds. A worker of the earth, a farmer.
How many people are named Yuriy
1 in 7139 men in Poland is named Yuriy. 2,992 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #589 among male names.
Yuriy's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Where Yuriy is most popular
Yuriy is most popular in Masovian, 510% above the national average (2 boys born 2019–2025).
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Masovian2 boys born+510%
Yuriy as a middle name
Yuriy is a first name for 2,992 men in Poland and a middle name for another 7, a 100/0 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 4097th, between Yue (7) and Zach (7).
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#4095 Younes7
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#4096 Yue7
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#4097 Yuriy7
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#4098 Zach7
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#4099 Zachariah7