Zdzisław

Zdzisław is Slavic to the bone, built from two old roots. One means to build or make, the other means glory. Together they give the sense the calendar of names records: budujący sławę, a builder of glory. The name states an ambition in plain terms, and it hands the child a verb rather than an ornament.

Poland keeps a feminine twin, Zdzisława, so the pair can sit together in one family or one register. Zdzisław celebrates most often on January 29, the busiest of his several imieniny dates.

The name found its loudest carrier in Zdzisław Beksiński, the painter who was murdered in 2005 and whose bleak, dreamlike canvases hang today in Sanok. His fame did not soften the name. If anything it made "builder of glory" sound literal, since the man raised his own strange renown out of oil and board.

Say it slowly and the meaning still holds: to make, and glory. A short name. Zdzisława stands right beside it.