Zdzisław
Around 89,000 Polish men carry it, but it barely reaches a new generation: just eight boys got it last year. From Slavic roots, the name reads as "builder of glory".
Zdzisław Pronunciation
Zdzisław is pronounced ZJEES-wahf (/ˈzd͡ʑiswaf/).
What Zdzisław means
Where Zdzisław comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
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.
How many people are named Zdzisław
1 in 240 men in Poland is named Zdzisław. 88,799 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #133 among male names.
Zdzisław's popularity over time
8 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #782 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2006. Still the #133 name among living men, even as it slips to #782 among newborns.
Where Zdzisław is most popular
Zdzisław is most popular in Pomeranian, 286% above the national average (5 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Masovian (+221%) and Lesser Poland (+100%).
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Pomeranian5 boys born+286%
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Masovian10 boys born+221%
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Lesser Poland4 boys born+100%
Zdzisław as a middle name
Zdzisław is a first name for 88,799 men in Poland and a middle name for another 50,403, a 64/36 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 58th, between Bogdan (50,472) and Waldemar (47,337).
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56
50,993Czesław
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57
50,472Bogdan
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5850,403Zdzisław
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59
47,337Waldemar
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60
46,809Wiktor