Telesfor

Telesfor comes from Greek. The word τελεσφόρος pairs telos, an end or completion, with the verb pherein, to bring. The name reads as one who brings a thing to its finish, in Polish doprowadzający do końca.

In Greek myth Telesphoros was a small hooded figure of healing, a companion of Asklepios who watched over recovery from illness. Recovery is a completion of sorts. The early church later attached the name to a Greek-born bishop of Rome, Telesphorus, the eighth pope, who died a martyr under the emperor Hadrian.

Polish calendars keep the name at a fixed point. Telesfor's imieniny falls on the second of January, moved there from an older fifth of January. A boy of that name will hear it once a year, read aloud from a class register. The Greek root stays legible under the Polish spelling. Whatever a man does with it, Telesfor still means doprowadzający do końca, the one who brings the work to its end.