Yilmaz
Only about 112 men in Poland carry it, so most people here have never met one, and no boys have been given it in recent years. A Turkish name meaning unyielding and brave.
Yilmaz Pronunciation
Yilmaz is pronounced ih-EEL-mahs (/ɨˈilmas/).
What Yilmaz means
Where Yilmaz comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Yilmaz comes from Turkish, and it says plainly what it means. The root is the verb `yılmak`, to be daunted or discouraged. Add the negative, and you get someone who does not flinch. Turkish speakers hear "unyielding, brave" in the name directly, with no metaphor to unpack.
In Turkey it works as both a surname and a given name. One famous bearer is Yılmaz Güney, the film director and writer whose `Yol` shared the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1982. The name suited a man who kept working from a prison cell.
Poland meets Yilmaz through neighbours, classmates, and marriage rather than tradition. There is no Polish name-day for it, and no diminutive of its own. On a class register in Warsaw it sits among Kacpers and Antonis, and the teacher learns to say the soft `ı` that Polish does not have.
The meaning stays fixed wherever it travels. Unyielding. Brave.
How many people are named Yilmaz
1 in 190591 men in Poland is named Yilmaz. 112 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3227 among male names.
Yilmaz as a middle name
Yilmaz is a first name for 112 men in Poland and a middle name for another 11, a 91/9 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 3032nd, between Yi (11) and Yohannes (11).
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#3030 Yashar11
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#3031 Yi11
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#3032 Yilmaz11
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#3033 Yohannes11
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#3034 Yonatan11