Żywia
A Slavic name meaning "life", tied to a goddess of life. It stays rare: fewer than a hundred women in Poland carry it, though newborn girls have started to trickle in over the past decade.
Żywia Pronunciation
Żywia is pronounced ZHIHV-yah (/ˈʐɨvja/).
What Żywia means
Where Żywia comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Żywia comes from Slavic roots that mean life and living. Behind it stands the Proto-Slavic word *živъ, "alive," the same root that gives Polish żyć and życie. The short meaning is exactly that: life, and a goddess of life.
The name has a documented past. The chronicler Jan Długosz, writing in the fifteenth century, listed Żywie among old Polish deities, a figure tied to life itself. Scholars still argue about her. Some read Długosz's Żywia as a real cult, others link her to Siwa, a goddess the chronicler Helmold recorded among the Polabian Slavs, and a few call her a scholarly invention. That debate is part of the name's record, and it is worth knowing before you carry it.
A child called Żywia today enters this straight away. On a class register the name sits apart from the Zosias and Zuzannas, closer to myth than to the calendar of saints.
The meaning stays simple under all of it. Żywia means life. The Polish gloss keeps both halves: życie, and bogini życia.
How many people are named Żywia
1 in 352247 women in Poland is named Żywia. 64 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #4593 among female names.
Żywia's popularity over time
3 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #1409 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2023.
Where Żywia is most popular
Żywia is most popular in Świętokrzyskie, 680% above the national average (2 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Pomeranian (+193%) and Lower Silesian (+175%).
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Świętokrzyskie2 girls born+680%
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Pomeranian2 girls born+193%
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Lower Silesian2 girls born+175%
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Masovian4 girls born+144%
Żywia as a middle name
Żywia is a first name for 64 women in Poland and a middle name for another 59, a 52/48 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 889th, between Lotta (59) and Alison (58).
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#887 Lola59
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#888 Lotta59
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#889 Żywia59
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#890 Alison58
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#891 Annabelle58