Yefrem
A Hebrew name carried into Polish through Russian, from a root meaning "fruitful". It stays vanishingly rare: fewer than 50 men hold it, and most Poles will never meet one.
Yefrem Pronunciation
Yefrem is pronounced ih-EF-rem (/ɨˈɛfrɛm/).
What Yefrem means
Where Yefrem comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Yefrem begins in Hebrew, where Ephraim meant fruitful. In the Book of Genesis, Ephraim is the younger son of Joseph, a name tied to increase and many descendants. It moved east into Slavic speech and settled in Russia as Efrem, or Yefrem in its longer sound.
Russian Orthodoxy gave the name a face. Ephrem the Syrian, a deacon and hymn-writer of the fourth century, is venerated across the Russian church, and his Lenten prayer is still read during the fast. A boy christened Yefrem took a saint's memory to the font.
The meaning stayed close to the ground. Fruitful, płodny, a word for orchards and harvests as much as for households. On a Polish school register the name reads as foreign and old, a visitor from the Orthodox east. It comes from farming country and monastery alike, and it still means fruitful.
How many people are named Yefrem
1 in 474360 men in Poland is named Yefrem. 45 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #5748 among male names.
Yefrem's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been climbing since 2025.