Zawisza
A Slavic name whose meaning circles envy, more precisely the envy of someone else's fame. Fewer than 50 men in Poland carry it, always men, and the handful of newborns each decade is thinning further.
Zawisza Pronunciation
Zawisza is pronounced zah-VEE-shah (/zaˈviʂa/).
What Zawisza means
Where Zawisza comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Zawisza comes from Slavic soil, kin to the old word zawiść, meaning envy. The sense recorded here is plain: envy, jealousy, in Polish zazdrosny o sławę, jealous of another's fame. That points to a hunger for renown, a wish to match a rival's glory rather than his gold.
Poland fixed the name to one man above all others. Zawisza Czarny z Garbowa, the Black Knight of the early fifteenth century, fought at Grunwald in 1410 and died at Golubac in 1428, holding a bridge against the Ottomans. His reliability became proverbial. Poles still say polegać jak na Zawiszy, to rely on someone as you would on Zawisza.
So the meaning bent over time. Envy of glory turned into a byword for the man everyone could trust. Open a Polish school register today and Zawisza is a rare entry, worn by boys named after the knight, not the vice. The root holds steady all the same: zawiść, envy of another's fame.
When Zawisza celebrates name day
Zawisza appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 17 August.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Zawisza
1 in 520639 men in Poland is named Zawisza. 41 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #6089 among male names.
Zawisza's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been climbing since 2025.
Zawisza as a middle name
Zawisza is a first name for 41 men in Poland and a middle name for another 141, a 23/77 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 595th, between Hektor (141) and Allen (140).
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#593 Emilio141
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#594 Hektor141
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#595 Zawisza141
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#596 Allen140
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#597 Orlando140