Walerian

Walerian comes from Latin. Behind it stand the Roman family name Valerius and the verb valere, meaning to be strong and to be healthy. That verb also seeds a family of English words, among them value and valid. The Roman cognomen Valerianus marked a person of the Valerius line, and from it Polish drew Waleryjan, a form recorded here since the thirteenth century.

The name keeps a companion in Waleria, its feminine form, built from the same root and the same promise of health. A boy called Walerian and a girl called Waleria share one etymology across the gender line.

Walerian celebrates his name-day eight times a year, most often on the fourteenth of April. The name was fairly common in Poland from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century and is rare now. Picture a Polish class register: one Walerian would sit alone among more familiar names. The meaning holds while fashion moves. Strong and healthy: silny, zdrowy.